A Beautiful Sight...Walkin' in a Winter Wonderland

It doesn't happen often, but when it does our campus looks beautiful and everyone is in a great mood. Now if we can remeber to drive carefully tomorrow in an icy parking lot, this will be a great experience!

One postscript. Mr. Ball put together this little movie in a matter of minutes on his Mac. It will be great when all our students can do this.

Getting After It

Oddly enough, I am having trouble finding the time to blog this year.  Despite have two extraordinarily capable principals, my time seems as engaged as ever, just with some different things.  So what follows below is a brief compendium of things I have been thinking about, but haven't had the time to address.

I was proud of the way our student comported themselves at Tuesday's basketball game with Bishop Gorman.  The Gorman student cheering section has watched too many college basketball games and apparently believe they are "the show," when it is the players who ought to be in the spotlight.  While I could go into more detail, check out the article in today's Review-Journal. I am hopeful that no similar article will ever be written about Faith students, but it helps that our administrative team makes its presence so visible.  I love our Crusader Crazies and their enthusiasm, but we will continue to hold them to high standards of decorum which leaves a lot of room to still have fun.

Many people have asked how we are doing in this economy.  So far, things are going okay. Giving is down and that is reflected in a number of ways. A few campaign pledges have had to be cancelled; the annual fund is not as robust as in years past.  Some families have talked to us about changing circumstances that have created financial hardship.  Our goal is to work with those families to keep kids in school whenever possible and certainly until the end of the semester. If you have money for a year-end charitable gift our scholarship fund is a worthy recipient. And despite a bad economy, new student enrollment is running substantially ahead of the pace of last year, so that indicator is positive.

People do want to know about what will happen in the future in terms of tuition. I can tell you that it is going to go up, but we hope to keep the increase to a minimum.  Interest payments alone on the new Chapel/Performing Arts building will add about $78 to each student's cost.  With no raises to the faculty our salaries go up over $62,000 because of step increases built into the schedule.  This adds about $48 a student. Then we have to have some room for inflation, technology, any salary/wage increases.  We are hoping to hold the increase to no more than 4% or another $336.  Tuition will be announced in mid-January.  There is no planned increase in fees.

We are very optimistic that we will launch our 1-to-1 computer initiative in the high school next year. In light of the economy, we will be moving conservatively, but I expect that each 9th grader will get an Apple Macbook as part of their educational equipment.  Freshman classes in subsequent years will get one as they enter high school and in four years, all high school students will have this technology integrated in their classes.  Middle school students will still get access through our mobile cart program.  Those carts will eventually be filled with Macs as well. Look for an official announcement after the 1st of the year.

At tomorrow's staff Christmas gathering PTF will once again hand out gifts gathered from our families. This generosity, especially in the midst of the challenging economic times, is a wondrous gift to those who labor to help students meet their potential.  It is always much appreciated.

Counting the Cost

I want every Faith high school student to get handed a laptop next fall and to use it on a regular basis as a tool to engage themselves in the learning process; but what I want and what will happen may be two different things. Our desire to expand our technology is conflicting with an equally strong desire to minimize any increases in tuition increases for 2009-10.

Faith's success is rooted in our constant progress.  Since moving to Summerlin we have spent an average of $2 million a year in improving our campus.  Athletic fields and new buildings have accounted for most of the dollars spent on improvements and there is no doubt that those additions have improved the product and benefitted our students.  Technology, and specifically the use of laptops on a regular basis, tie students into the world in way unthinkable just a few years ago. Just as importantly, they give teachers access to wealth of teaching resources, including lessons recognized as best practices.

We want to operate more efficiently.  We understand our environment is more competitive now that Bishop Gorman and the Adelson School have moved into the community.  It would be unwise of uis not to consider the changing economic conditions of our community. Our distinctiveness will never be rooted in our buildings, our computers, or our athletic success, no matter how successful those elements are.  Ministry is what matters here: taking each student and recognizing him or her as a unique child of God with boundless potential and a strong need to feel valued for who they are.

If we continue to do that, we will weather the storms ahead.

Point/Counterpoint

Not everyone loves us. First read this column from the Mesquite Local News. My response, which they were kind enough to include in full in their on-line version, follows:

Dear Editor,

I read with interest Happy Pontiac’s recent screed “Faith Lutheran: The Team I Love to Hate.” For a newspaper serving a small town with some old-fashioned small town values, his article was, appropriately, small. His work is certainly evidence that the power of the pen and the power of the mind are not necessarily related.

That “big shiny bus” was, in part, paid for by a parent. The gas and maintenance are paid for by the tuition dollars of our families. The bus also transports our choir and band on their excursions as well as transports classes on field trips. Our teachers and administrators don’t have access to a fleet of vehicles provided at taxpayer expense. We have to provide our own. Happy, just because you cover teams that proudly wear the green and white that is no reason for you to be green with envy.

While you insist that money must be at the root of our evil empire, were you aware that not that long ago, the school raised over $100,000 to support the victims of hurricane Katrina and the Asian tsunami? Or that each year our school provides hundreds of gifts through Operation Christmas Child to help those in need around the world?

And thanks for the compliment on our website. We do want prospective students and parents to look at it and consider the advantages of an education at Faith Lutheran. Perhaps if you had attended Faith you would have learned about libel. One definition of that word is “anything that is defamatory or that maliciously or damagingly misrepresents.” Both the NIAA and the NCAA have pretty clear rules about what we can do in terms of helping athletes. All our aid is need-based and that need is determined by an outside company. Nowhere on the form is there an opportunity for anyone to identify themselves as athletes, great actors or accomplished musicians. But I know you are going to consider this defense rather self-serving, so I offer this challenge: find someone. Find that athlete getting a “free ride” at Faith. But please find a real student. Not just one the voices in your head told you about. The notion that we would disregard our integrity for the sake of winning an athletic contest is ludicrous, but you are welcome to pursue your crusade against the Crusaders.

You write our soccer team was disrespectful during a ceremony. Were you aware that no one on the Virgin Valley side let our team know there was going to be a ceremony? Were you aware that our entire student body spent time that day in an assembly honoring our military and those who serve?

I was pleased to see that you survived your visit to Faith Lutheran Friday night. Given what you have written about our school, tarring and feathering might have been appropriate. Congratulations to your football team for their victory and to the volleyball team for their efforts as well. We look forward to continued spirited competition for the rest of the school year.

Finally, might I suggest that readers of the Mesquite Local News take to heart your own words and apply them to you: “…disregard everything I have ever said. Ever.”

Isn't it amazing how our biases can move us past those silly things called facts? I bring this to your attention in part because we sometimes forget that we are a target for some people. People resent our success and look for ways to tear us down. We are always under somebody's miscroscope, whether it is an opposing coach, player, fan or intrepid journalist (used in the lightest possible sense). Thus our witness must be positive.

Randomness

Yesterday I attended the wind ensemble concert. It was among the first public fine arts performances in the new CPAC. It was definitely worth the wait as the building is an acoustical marvel. Dr. Richard Fischer, conductor of the Concordia University-Chicago wind ensemble was on campus Friday working with our band and he was extremely complimentary of our facility. It isn't bragging if it's true: we now have the premier performance space in the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod. A lot of people made this possible, but soli Deo gloria.

I would be interested in hearing from families about how we can be helpful in this time of economic upheaval. Occasionally I will hear from a parent that they or their spouse has been laid off and we talk about what that means for their students at our school. We will do everything we can to provide additional financial aid, but that pool, the largest it has ever been, still has some limits. This will be a topic at our next Board meeting.

As we start looking to next year, maintaining a healthy enrollment is critical to our continued success. The primary way students are recruited to Faith, other than siblings and Lutheran school graduates, is because of word-of-mouth. Anything you can do to convince someone to take a look at our school is helpful.

I recently spoke to a CCSD teacher in town working at one of the high schools. One of her classes had 50 students on the roster. She was a science teacher. And everyone of those 50 students had already failed this course once. While I doubt this is typical, it is no less tragic. While not everything at Faith is perfect, kids at least have the opportunity to be successful, limited mostly by their own drive and determination. I hope you feel enthusiastic about recommending Faith to your friends and relatives. If not, please give me a call so I can find out why.

This week is Homecoming at Faith. It is a week for making memories that may last a lifetime. I hope everyone has a great (and safe) time.

Missing the Boat

I am an admitted news junkie, much to my wife's chagrin. A good evening for me is flipping between Fox News and CNN to see what the various talking heads have to say about the Presidential election or more recently, the country's economic state. This week I have turned on CNBC in the morning as I get ready for the day, not because of concerns for my own meager 403B account, but because I am anxious to know what the experts think lies ahead both in the short term and in the extended future.

While the current economic crisis can be looked at a number of different ways, you haven't heard this much: at the heart of this issue is a moral problem -- too many people who settle for the expedient and ignore what is right. From CEO greed to people who bought houses with the idea they could simply walk away when things got tough, the sons and daughters of the Greatest Generation are proving to be anything but.

What does this have to do with education? Who's Who Among American High School Students has been surveying students for a long time. One recent report said that: "This survey spans three decades (1970-2000) and is the most comprehensive database available online of the attitudes and opinions of high-achieving teens on a range of subjects, including cheating.

In the 1999 survey, 84 percent of the high school students judged cheating to be “common” among their peers. That high percentage was not surprising in light of the fact that 78 percent of the same students confessed they themselves had cheated. Ninety-five percent of the students who cheated said they did not get caught."

By the way, this survey was of students regarded as among the country's best. We are seeing a generation of cheaters grow before our eyes. Students appear to be cheating at such a prolific rate, one wonders whether years from now the concept of cheating in school will even be an issue. The problem is that if you learn to cheat, to steal, to mislead for personal gain (even if it is to avoid a zero on an assignment) when does the moral compass kick in to say taking advantage of a client in even a small way is wrong. If in the small episodes of life cheating is accepted and penalties avoided, why are we amazed at the hubris of corporate titans and their golden parachutes? Parents who rush to the defense of their cheating students with cries of "your making mountains out of molehills" miss the point: we are creating tomorrow's moral climate today.

At Faith we will continue to fight the good fight. Giving in would be expedient, but never right.

Waiting for the Football Game to Start

So in keeping with my promise that my readers get some news before everyone else, I am excited to let you know that Avalon, one of contemporary Christian music's most popular groups, will perform in concert at the new Chapel/Performing Arts building on Saturday, November 8 at 7:30 pm. The concert will kick-off "dedication weekend" with a service to follow on Sunday, November 9 at 2 p.m. Look for more information in The Crusader and on the website in the next few weeks. We have some really cool things planned to celebrate the opening of this building.

About a month into the school year things are going well. Our HS athletic teams are doing well and middle school sports are about to get into their game schedules. One thing not going particularly well is traffic. Today I received this email from a parent: I am contacting you regarding pick up and drop off of the 6th graders at you school. It is a little scary at drop off and pick up time. I am experiencing parents cutting in and out from the curb, stopping in the lane of traffic(because the curb is full) to drop off instead of using the curb. This morning I saw a parent stop in the middle lane an let their child walk from the middle of the street to the side walk. I understand that everyone is busy and in a hurry but if everyone followed the guidelines of a single line and pulling up to the car in front of you from the light at Home Run and Hualapai, it might take a minute or so longer but seems that is would be safer and a lot less confusing.
It is possible that I am misunderstanding how this should work, please forward any thoughts.
Homestretch Avenue seems unusually dangerous this year. That is at least in part because the volume of traffic is higher than it should be. Only 6th graders are supposed to be picked up there. On my occasional visits to that part of campus I've noticed that we either have the world's tallest 6th graders, or other students are meeting parents there. We have limited ability to enforce common sense and good judgment. Maybe it's time to hand out detentions to students who are in the wrong place and have parents serve them!

This week Mr. Orr, Mr. Chalfant and I spent some time at Apple, Inc. They have a great set of products and comprehensive approach to teaching teachers how to use technology to change the way we teach and students learn. We are considering a partnership with them, which would gradually move most of the computers in school from the PC to the Mac platform. I am wondering two things: 1st, have you noticed any difference with your students with our renewed emphasis on technology; and 2nd, do parents care what platform computers our students use?

Friday Night Lights

I guess you would call it a "Dodger" crowd. Parents and fans were trickling into our home game last Friday up until half time and by the time everyone arrived we had a pretty good sized gathering. There is something very communal about a Friday night football game: parents, grandparents, former students and parents, middle schoolers (there more for the socializing than the game), volunteers grilling hot dogs and hamburgers, pep band music playing in the background, cheerleaders and dancers. Friday night football is a great slice of Americana. And when we win the spirit of the evening is even richer.

While I love our theater events and our music performances, it is hard to capture the energy you feel when your team scores and the fight song is played. (And by the way, I continue my decade old battle that fans should stand and at least clap along when the pep band plays the fight song.) Maybe its the coach in me (or perhaps the frustrated athlete)but watching our coaches and athletes come roaring back from a big deficit always inspires pride.

Friday night football games are one of the places strangers to Faith can get a feel for what our community is like. That's why we pay some attention to the way our students come dressed to the games and how they comport themselves while they are there. Those who mill about the sidelines or sit in the student section represent our school even when not wearing the maroon and gold. And it's also why we have high expectations about our fans behavior, expectations that were clearly met at Friday's game, thank you very much!

So I encourage you, even if you are not the parent of a dancer, cheerleader, pep bander or footballer to make some time to attend one of our games. As summer's heat gives way to fall's cooler temps, there are few things as enjoyable as Friday Night Lights. (But watching tennis, volleyball, soccer or cross country makes for a good time too!)

An Amazing Time

While I often am wistful about not being in the classroom on a daily basis, that desire has been particularly strong this week. As a long-time social studies teacher (my Master's is in government and politics)it has been remarkable to watch this election season unfold. In the last 24 hours we have seen the 1st African American to be nominated as his party's Presidential nominee and then today John McCain selected a woman to be his running mate for the first time in GOP history. For our students who have grown up in an age when racial and gender equality is almost taken for granted, I wonder whether they are in wonder regarding the last 24 hours in American political history.

While it is hard to get many students excited about civic issues, this is as good an opening as we are likely to see. And it opens the door to some great conversations you can have at home. The stark differences in style and positions of the two presidential candidates offers a chance for you to discuss with your student the values you hold, why you hold them and why you choose to vote the way you do. The single best predictor of an individual's party affiliation is their parent's politics.

Kids learn best in real world situations. The Presidential election is democracy's learning lab. While I hope we will do our part to engage students, this is a great time to be working together.

A Good Start

After just three days of school I can say with some certainty that we are begining the school year in excellent fashion. And by fashion I mean some satisfaction with the decision to drop skirts from our school dress code. Now if we could just get some of our young men to get their hair cuts....
The feedback we received from streaming chapel hs been very positive, so look for that to happen again real soon. We have a few techical glitches to get fixed, but we are working on them...
Look for an email this week about providing students with email accounts through school. Please know we are taking appropriate cautions to protect student identities. Having an email address will enable students to access the wikis and blogs that our teachers are developing, all with the idea to improve student learning. Parents will have the right to opt out their student, but before you do, please talk with Mr. Orr , Mr. Chalfant or me so we can answer any questions you might have.
We are hoping to fully occupy CPAC by the end of the month. Much of the work being done currently is related to the lines sets for scenery and lighting. Additional work is focused on the sound system.

Almost Time

With school less than 24 hours away from starting, the place is abuzz with activity. Here are a few things I wish I could tell everyone:


1. Please be patient, especially in and around our parking lots and drop-off/pick-up zones.


2. Be engaged. I know we send quite a bit through the mail and we will try to reduce that amount by using the website as a primary means of communication, but that means people have to check the website regularly. Please attend your student's events: athletics, concerts plays. No matter what they may say about "It's no big deal," your presence in their life is much more significant than ours.


3. Pray for your students, their teachers and our school.



On a different note, I have prepared for the Board of Directors an annual report built around a powerpoint presentation which you can view below. Of course, you'll miss my pithy commentary, but if you have any questions I would be happy to answer them. If you are checking this immediately, you'll see it even before the Board of Director's. Is that legal?

Annual Report August 2008

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own.

Open for Business

The Chapel/Performing Arts Center is ready for occupancy! Well, almost. A temporary certificate of occupancy will enable us to gain access to the lobby, restrooms, storage spaces and the classrooms. The auditorium should be ready by October 1st. Over the last few days some students and parents have helped move band and theater equipment and supplies to their new digs in CPAC. Landscapers have put the finishing touches on our gorgeous amphitheater. New grass and new trees dress it up nicely.

This is a view of the ceiling in the auditorium. Seats will be going in next week and the rigging for the stage will start soon as well.

This is the drama room just waiting for students in 12 days.

The band room is perhaps the largest classroom on campus with room for individual and ensemble practices.

The bell tower reminds all who pass by that this is a Christian school.

Not the Smartest in the Room

It is an extraordinary feeling to be in a room with 1000 people and get the feeling that almost all of them know more than you about something very important. That is a rough approximation of my experience at the Building Learning Communities 08 conference I attended last week in Boston. The conference is an activity of November Learning and its namesake, Alan November, who has been a leading educator and technology advocate for as long as I can remember.

The most important lesson I relearned was that all of this technology is in service to enriching student learning. That is a mantra we will have to repeat often this year as we work with teachers to prepare them for a time when our high school students all come to class with laptops. Jon Orr, one of our schools most tech savvy teachers will be working with our faculty to provide them with the knowledge to use the tech tools we have or will be getting.

I often wonder if 19th century teachers went through all this angst when the lead pencil replaced chalk and slate and inkwells and quills. Were there pencils workshops? Could you get a Master's Degree in educational pencilship?

There is an enormously interesting world out there, a world with challenges that I know our students can tackle. In wrestling with those problems, they learn more useful material than reciting the Gettysburg Address or listing the elements of the periodic table. Technology can put the world at our fingertips, but that is only an advantage if we know how to interact with it.

I expect that students will be bemused at our efforts to use technology to learn. Some of the coolness of having a blog is dimished when every old guy (read administrator) has one. But if we do it right, the journey to using education to enhance student learning is a journey we can take together. I hope it works that way at Faith.

He's Baaaaack.....

I am back in town after a brief respite. Besides my parents and a few other relatives, our time was structured around visits with people who had crossed our path along our thirty years in Lutheran schools. In contrast to Mary and I who've moved around a bit, we enjoyed some time with Barb and Mark Korntheuer who have spent their entire careers at Walther Lutheran High School in Melrose Park, Illinois. A few days later we lunched with John and Ramona Ragland. John is at former athletic director at Faith and is now the Interim Executive Director of Rockford Lutheran High School (I am a proud alum, class of '74). Ramona teaches at Concordia Lutheran School in Machesney Park, IL (my 1st Lutheran School). The Lutheran world is really connected! We also spent time with Larry and Rhoda Baldwin, now living in Iowa (a relatively dry part). I miss Larry's excellence in teaching and our common frustration with the game of golf. Larry is serving on the Board of Valley Lutheran High School in Cedar Falls, Iowa.

Those Lutheran Schools in the Midwest reflect much earlier some of the challenges we may soon face. They are facing even worse economic conditions than we currently have in Las Vegas. It reminds me that the sacrifice parents make to provide Christian education for their students must be honored by those delivering that education. We will work to expand dollars available for financial aid and work with families facing short-term financial situations that make timely tuition payments difficult. We just ask that families stay in contact with us and let us know when a problems occurs, not when tuition is so far in arrears that a student's attendance is in doubt.

I am fearful that my vacation is so attached to my work, but our lives would be much poorer without these wonderful people from who I have learned much, laughed until it hurt and shared the joy of ministry.

BHAG

In a few hours our faculty will embark on a journey that will never end, but hopefully reach it's destination fourteen months from now. Today we start the first of six hours of technology training over the next two days, the first sessions in a series designed to help our teachers use technology as an effective tool in instruction. That instruction will continue into the fall and throughout the next school year. It is a part of an overall strategy to integrate technology in an ubiquitous way. It is one leg of our BHAG.

Readers of Jim Collins's Good to Great are familiar with the term, but for those readers not familiar, BHAG stands for big, hairy audacious goal. Our BHAG is to be the leader of technology in education for the state of Nevada and for Lutheran schools throughout the world. While there are a lot of elements that make up that goal, perhaps the most impactful is our plan that every HS student at Faith will be provided a laptop at the start of the 2009-10 school year.

In order for us to make that commitment it is critical that our teachers have a good understanding of the power of technology to engage students and change instruction. The current crop of students we have is literally wired differently. There is at least some research that suggests that the multitasking, social networking digital kids of today have brains that function in different ways than those of a generation ago. We need to be aware of those changes and design classroom instruction that accounts for the differences.

I remember conversations as a young teacher about how Sesame Street was producing a generation of students with short attention spans and much less patience for the lecture and learn style of teaching pretty prevalent in the 70s. It sure seemed like kids had much less ability to focus. And today we can identify kids with attention deficit at earlier ages than ever. We make accommodations for those students in our classrooms. However, one of the lessons we should have learned from J.K. Rowling is that students are more than willing to devote time and attention to an activity if the content is engaging. Thanks Harry Potter.

Many of our students can text faster than I can type this blog. They can integrate video, audio, photography and other content in new and creative ways. They process information faster. We need to teach them to take all they information at there fingertips, judge its accuracy fairly, and think critically about what they information means and how it affects their lives and decision-making. It is an exciting time to be a teacher. But when hasn't it been?

The End of (School) Days

As we close the end of the 2007-08 school year we bring to an end some school and personal milestones. This was the tenth year our school has been located in Summerlin. That happens to coincide with the number of years I have been the head administrator here. The first is not much of the surprise; the 2nd is.

I am amazed and humbled at what God has accomplished in just ten years at this school. With the exception of the tennis courts and a dedicated soccer field, the original Master Plan is now complete and the buildings are much bigger than than what was originally envisioned. Even with that, we have had to keep and grow the portable classroom farm on the southwest side. Over the last ten years our student population and faculty have more than doubled. Faith has become a school of importance in our community.

Mary and I have been glad to ride along. After stops in Portland, OR; New York City; Cleveland, and Chicago, Las Vegas is now the longest place we have ever lived. My previous connections with the city were not remarkable. In the early 80s the school had contacted me about being a teacher but I had no interest in moving west again. In the mid-90s we took the longest of any of our family vacations, travelling from Chicago down to I-40 and across the southwest to LA and then back northeast up to I-90 and back to Chicago. One of our stops was a July day in Las Vegas. I remember it being 103 degrees at 10:00 am and declaring with great certainty that only crazy people lived in such a climate. My antipathy was lessened somewhat when Mary won $40 at a Caesar's Palace slot.

But man plans and God laughs. Not that much later I would consider and then accept the call to be Faith's principal. My 1st goal was simply to be the longest serving administrator in the school's brief history. Reached that milestone a while ago. We crossed the 1000 student plateau and kept going.

As we approach graduation it is hard not to be nostalgic. The last Moyer is graduating which ends a streak of more than a dozen years of having a student at Faith. Other families are bringing long associations with school to a close. Some will watch students cross the stage and know that it took an act of God to make it happen; others will wonder what will become of their son, daughter, niece, nephew, grandchild or friend who may have talents and abilities that surpass most of us regular folk. Is there a future Bill Gates, Mother Teresa, John McCain or Hilary Clinton among them? Are there teachers and preachers to inspire another generation?

The future for them and for us is in God's hands. My prayer for those who graduate is that they are happy and make a difference in the lives of people around them.

Take a look at the progress our building is making:

We have some sidewalks!

This is the support structure for seating below the mezzanine.

This monster pump supports the sprinkler sytem for the tallest building on campus.

This will be the drama classroom/green room. It is really big!

Traditions

Yesterday we held the annual senior auction, which serves primarily to fund the senior "class gift" to the school. Those of us who have watched these events over the years think that we broke several records: most bid at one time and total dollars collected. We will give the class officers some choices as to what they want to fund with the gift that will be between $8,ooo-9,000. I thank them now and will thank them later as well.

But as an educator, I have some problems with this event. It puts a monetary value on students. Popular and high profile students (athletes for instance) generally attract the most bidding. Quiet students who play second string trumpet (for instance) attract much less attention and consequently much less money. When four students get auctioned for $70 and later two students go for $2000, there have to be some hurt feelings.

Some of the posters advertising the event suggested it was a slave auction. This is nothing like a real slave auction and the tasks our seniors have to perform will not approach the hardships of millions of slaves held in bondage throughout history. To apply that term to the frivolity of what we do seems somehow inappropriate to me.

In their attempt to grab the attention of the audience, some of the seniors crossed the lines of propriety. Whether by what they wore or by what they did, some ran the risk of offending while others subjected the school to some unnecessary liability. This unique event falls in the cracks: student council runs the assembly, but no one tells the seniors what the lines that shouldn't be crossed are. With just two weeks left in their high school careers, seniors are more interested in busting loose than mature contemplation.. Maybe we just need better supervision.

All of this raises some questions we need to think about soon. Our Faith Faithful celebration lasted three hours. HS graduation will be at least that long. Both are special times for students and families, but increasingly, people are unwilling to devote that much time to these kinds of activities. The class of 2010 will likely have as many as 30 more graduates. Following our current pattern, graduation could stretch to four hours long.

It might be time to rethink some of our activities, born in the day when had classes that were in the 30-40 student range, and look for new ways to commemorate special events. We can still have memorable events without committing people to marathons and spectacles. As always, your ideas are appreciated.

Project Runway

It's official. Skirts and skorts will not be part of the dress code next year. I am curious to discover which change will elicit the most response: significant changes in our drug/alcohol policy or the banning of skirts. I think I have a good guess.

While the decision had already been made today was illustrative of one of the reasons this is a good idea in our setting. It was a bit breezy. I had crosswalk duty. Thirty feet away a group of middle school girls were gathered to wait for rides and this time of year, to talk about boys, when the wind kicked up and so did the back of this young lady's skirt. Suffice it to say I saw parts of her that should be reserved for moms and doctors. Fortunately for me, I don't know who the young lady is, which will spare both of us some additional embarrassment. Today's half second was enough.

I understand the need to be cool in a desert climate. I appreciate that dresses accentuate femininity and I am not one of those modernists who wish to blur any differences between males and females. But fundamentally, Faith is about education and no strong argument can be made that the wearing of skirts and skorts improve the opportunities for students to learn. And I am old-fashioned enough to believe that modesty should have a place in the lives of young people (and adults, but that is another matter), especially at a Christian school. There are plenty of opportunities outside of school for girls to wear skirts and shorts at whatever length parents will tolerate.

Like some other policy changes, we will review this after a year. I would be surprised however, if the faculty supports a return to the status quo.

Perception vs. Reality

Sometime this week I will get the final report from the survey we have been conducting over the last month. My thanks to all who took the time to respond. The hard part will be determining if the number of responses is statistically significant and then interpreting what, if anything should be done in response.

I have received interim reports each of the last few weeks. It is certainly a joy to read the comments of those defined as "promoters" which outnumbered the "detractors" by about a 20-1 margin. It is nice to know people have good feelings about our school and are willing to voice them. And while it probably is a character flaw, I have spent more time reading the comments of the groups defined as "passives" and "detractors". I want to know if there is something I can do to "fix" the problems some in our constituency identified.

Some can' t be fixed. When one parent writes we give way too much homework and another writes we are not giving enough, that gap is pretty hard to bridge. My focus is more on the quality of the homework we assign and less about it's quantity. Yet I know that is how some folks will measure us. One parent asks that we be at least one year ahead of our public school counterparts and another asks that we have a program for students not headed for college. While those two outcomes may not be mutually exclusive, the obstacles to achieve both at a school our size are significant.

One of the comments that has consistently been voiced over the years (and shows up a few times in this survey) is that the school has become obsessed with money. I am never quite sure what to make of that, but I know I don't like it. When I took the call to Faith one of the attractive things about it was that people had an ambitious vision of what the future could be. There was a master plan that included ball fields, a chapel, gym and a lot of classrooms. Board members told me they were certain that Faith could have over 1000 students, a bold claim when there were just over 400 students in the school and no Lutheran schools in the U.S. with that many students. The work that has been done over the last decade has fulfilled those dreams.

But buildings cost money and here, the cost of building has escalated fairly dramatically over the last decade. It has meant that we have been in a capital campaign almost continually and building something almost every year. It also means costs escalate. Our mortgage gets bigger. Utilities increase. We have to add staff to maintenance and landscaping to support expanded facilities. As the student body has grown we've added teachers, pretty consistently matching a 17-1 ratio. Those teachers work at below "market" rates in an area that has a higher standard of living costs than where most Lutheran schools are located. It has been a priority of our Board to be fair with them.

The perception that money buys you influence at Faith is hard to see from my perspective. I am the one turning away troubled students from prominent families who promise "support" for our latest project if we will give their students an opportunity. One longtime friend of the school has distanced himself because I wouldn't take a enroll a new student whose entrance score was substantially below the cut-off. I wonder to this day if that was a good decision. Students from well-to-do families have been expelled, drug-tested, suspended and disciplined. They also made teams, got into NHS and were leads in the play. Many families who are widely held to be "rich" don't really do much for our school as far as donations. Yet when their kids succeed, make the team or get a reward too many people snipe that their success came from money and influence. That's unfair to those students.

For most of my growing up years my dad was a barber (not a stylist!). He worked 12 hour days cutting hair for $2.00 a head and half of that went to the shop owner. My mom was a factory worker who never made more than $5.25 an hour. The respect I have for families who struggle to meet Faith's rising tuition costs is visceral. We are blessed that God has given our community people with resources. We would not be where we are today without them. But people who think that money drives decision-making about who gets cut, who gets the lead, who gets admitted or who gets disciplined are just wrong.

A Good Night

Tonight we inducted many students into the National Honor Societies. It is always one of my favorite nights. As we near the end of the year the awards ceremonies provide this professional educator with a burst of enthusiasm for finishing the year strong. It also makes me reflect on the commitment that so many families make to their kids: to send them here, to make the financial sacrifice, but mostly to be present in their lives. While tonight is clearly about these great kids, it is also about strong families without whose support evenings like tonight would not be possible. So thanks.



Some students who probably should have been present tonight were not. As I expect parents to do, a few have loudly advocated for their children and volunteered some helpful information as to how we might better our selection process to insure its fairness. Every decision about human beings, whether yes/no, either/or, cut or keep involves some degree of subjectivity. Being on the wrong end of those decisions can be painful. Enduring that pain and then moving past it is a lesson we all have to learn. As parents, we'd like to postpone those lessons as long as possible. That said, we are engaged in a review of our honor society application process and will have some updates for our community in the coming weeks.



Finally, I hope my few faithful readers will enjoy a look at the progress we are making with CPAC:

Lobby/Gallery


Band RoomAuditorium roofAuditorium from mezzanine

Proactive versus Reactive

Last night I was surprised to discover that Channel 8 wanted to cover our parent meeting and I was faced with the prospect of deciding whether or not to allow that. Whenever the news media is involved, you have very little control over how the story is reported. A great example of that is last night Channel 8 promo'd the story on the meeting by talking about our zero tolerance policy and saying some parents were so upset that we we being sued. The meeting wasn't about the zero tolerance policy and to date, we have not been sued by anyone. They also used an image of Faith Academy in their promo, the 2nd time in as many weeks they have confused the two schools.

While I was greeting parents before the meeting the reporter chose to go outside and caught a couple of our students for their comments. I wish the students would have said something other than what they did, but I'm all for freedom of speech. However, normally when the press is on campus an adult is always present when they are interviewed.

The bottom line is that the story may not have accurately portrayed what the meeting was about: should Faith impose tougher drug testing standards on our students. I think it is a fair characterization to say that almost everyone present was supportive of the summer hair testing program. There may have been some in the audience apposed, but if so, they were very quiet.

One parent did raise an interesting point: is Faith prepared to lose a bunch of students because of the policy change? Honestly, it didn't occur to me that large numbers of families would withdraw students because of this. As a parent, I would want to know if my son or daughter had some drug involvement because the earlier intervention occurred, the more likely it would have some impact. I hope and pray that is true for all of our families. But if it isn't, I hope we still proceed. If it is a good idea, fear should not defeat it. If it is a bad idea, I hope more people would speak up and defend their point of view.

There are legitimate arguments to make against this proposed change, just as there are legitimate arguments against our zero tolerance policy. School administrators weigh those arguments carefully as policy is crafted. We try to do what is best for all of the students even though individual circumstances may create some perceptions of unfairness. Our aim is to do no harm, but it also to aggressively pursue those measures that can warn and protect students from involvement with drugs and alcohol.

A Preview of Coming Attractions

What's the point of reading a blog if you can't get the good stuff first? This week the Board of Directors approved a petition to the NIAA that would allow Faith to participate as a 4A school effective with the 2009-10 school year. Since the NIAA has not declined requests for schools to "move up" it seems very likely this will happen.

We have some work to do in order to improve our competitiveness at that level. We will be looking to expand and improve our weight training facility. We would like to be able to at least practice tennis on campus. The flooring in the Kalb Student Center needs to be more multipurpose. The addition of another soccer/lacrosse field is high on the priority list. Over the next few months we'll be looking at ways to get those projects done without busting our very tight budget.

I am also happy that Mrs. Heislen will return to Faith and resume her role as Middle School Principal. This will be her third stint at Faith which is God's way of gently telling her this is where she belongs!. Mrs. Heislen brings wisdom and enthusiasm to her tasks and we are blessed to have her back.

Faith Faithful

I often tell people I have the best job of any Lutheran school administrator in the country. Today I spent three hours figuring out that's not really true. Today we held our annual Faith Faithful recognition, a time we take to honor those students who have been here since 6th grade (or 7th grade for 1st Good Shepherd students.) About 45% of the class of 2008 falls into that category. Mrs, MacAllister, Mrs. Ball, Mr. Laufer and several others spoke eloquently, emotionally and often kiddingly about these students who they had come to know over the 6 or 7 years they attended here. I was jealous.

I miss building those relationships with students, a task complicated when it may often seems with students that my job is to put the hammer down. Few in the Faith Faithful group had ever been to my office, a testimony to their character and to some good parenting. That I do not know many of them well is my loss, one we will all feel next August when this group of fine young men and women no longer walk our halls.

Two Millon Minutes

Today most of the HS faculty watched a documentary with the above title. It was a snapshot of the lives of 6 high school students: 2 in the U.S.; two in India; and two in China. Not surprisingly, students in China and India study a lot more than American students. They go to school more than American students. And generally their academic coursework is significantly more demanding. The students profiled in the US had a lot more options. One worked, was involved in student government, was a former football player and a national merit semi-finalist. In short American students had more fun (some would say balanced) and had more options than their international counterparts.

The issues raised in the film can hardly be addressed by Faith. American schools have been in crisis for as long, or longer, than my 30 years in education. I was educated in the post-Sputnik era, a time now fondly remembered by educators for the spate of reforms that were generated. We are now 25 years past A Nation At Risk and there have been few changes I would call systemic. Students today are pretty much educated the way I was: they just have access to a lot more gadgets. We know vast amounts more about how students learn, but little of that makes it way into school classrooms.

It may take a crisis, the kind that generates social upheaval, economic calamity or political disruption, to alert more of our leaders that we continue to prepare students for a world that no longer exists. That would be painful for us all, but it may be the medicine needed to spark genuine change. I hope I am around to see it and equally hopeful the symptoms don't kill the patient before the medicine arrives.

In our little corner of the world we'll continue to look at ways we can improve, one day at a time.

Inspiration

Saturday I attended the memorial service for Bill Koerwitz. It was amazing to hear his children and grandchildren reflect on the impact he made on their lives. We saw a video that touched on the way Bill's company helped shape Las Vegas over the last several decades. Our library and baseball field bear the Koerwitz name and Bill and Elsie gave the lead gift for the CPAC. His impact on our school will never be forgotten. But what ran through all the stories that were told was how much he had taught people by his example. Whether at church, work or with his family, his quiet determination, work ethic and quirky sense of humor made an impact on virtually everyone who came to know him. It is said that teachers touch lives through eternity. If that is true, Bill Koerwitz was a truly great teacher. He will be missed.

An Interesting Day

The day began with parking procedures that went remarkably well. Despite a significant section of the west lot being unavailable, the volunteers from the Explorers, Metro and our own staff managed things quite nicely.

Every 15 Minutes is a powerful program. I am so grateful to all the participants: Metro, Fire and rescue, Mercy Air, the Coroner's Office, Palm Mortuary, UMC and probably some I don't know about. Dan Buikema provided the leadership on the school side. The accident scene was graphic. Our students performed their roles realistically. Seeing the names of classmates on grave markers and hearing/reading obituaries should make it personal for our students. With the assembly tomorrow, I find it impossible to imagine this program won't have an impact. But will it be enough to overcome the eternal quest of young people to rebel against the rules imposed by adults?

This program is one of the ways we try to educate students about the dangers of drug and alcohol use/abuse. We are going to talk about some other potential steps the school might take at a "Town Hall" meeting on April 17. Now the last such event we had in February was about the potential move to 4A athletics. Attendance for that event was smaller than I expected. These issues touch the lives of every student at Faith. I am hoping for a bigger crowd.

Meanwhile, while the HS students were engaged in Every 15 Minutes, many of our MS students were hearing from Jim and Pam Voelkel, authors of Middleworld, a Mayan themed adventure tale. Their experiences were fascinating and gave our students a look at a world few are familiar. They also got to see Mr. Boche in some ancient Mayan dress, which was certainly a highlight of my day:

Tonight we have a concert featuring the band from Mayer Lutheran High School in Minnesota. I don't remember this much stuff happening when I was in school.

Getting Started

I am an advocate of using technology in school.

And all the information about school leadership in this area suggests that if you want to lead in technology, you have to be a user of technology, so this is the first post to my blog. Candidly, I have read blogs but can't recall that I ever responded to one (other than Jon Orr's!). A few weeks ago someone quoted an interesting statistic: 90% of all blogs are never responded to. Several days later at another conference, another presenter insisted that a blog was a good way to drive traffic to your website. So much for experts.

I hope this will become another spot where people can share ideas, communicate concerns and tell stories about their experiences at Faith. It won't be a place to bash teachers, staff or other students (technology provides plenty of those places already). It may help us get the word out on important events. My guess is that the blog will evolve as people choose to read and respond (or not, if the good Dr. Bresemann is correct!) So let the conversation begin....