Well, it started off with an overwhelming feeling of embarrassment, disgust, and sadness (probably hopeless, too–yeah definitely hopelessness). I mean what were we really doing here. No money, No direction. No hope. And the bad news kept getting, well…worse.
BUT, leaving the meeting I felt as though we are in a better position than yesterday. Nothing changed. No more money was promised (in fact the status quo, we were told, would be the best case scenario). Strange how things work, no?
And the Director of Instruction suprised me today. And showed me my ignorance (but that’s always happening tho’). Andy is a forward-thinking leader with ideas and plans to make it happen. He supports the work of the ITSC and believes that we can help direct, guide, and educate our Board members in their roles as they make difficult decisions that impact people’s livelihood, technology, and most importantly, the future of education of our students.
No doubt, the train of communication to other SD8 staff will be an important element to this whole process. Creating a district-wide long range plan that is multi-layered will also come into play. Other ideas about shuffling money and rethinking our spending on things like paper and textbooks to ther digitally-centred themes (i.e. handhelds, Moodle, Smartboards, etc.) will be essential.
I’m proud to be a member of this committee; and while the work that lies ahead is daunting, and well, kinda ugly–but so very necessary–we will hunker down, get creative, get motivated, inspire others and each other, and get done what needs to get done. That’s exciting. That’s something that I want to be a part of…
GETTING CURIOUS 