Weekly Update 3/16/2012

With spring break this week it has been awfully quiet around the office.  The normal hum of activity has a certain comfort, and I look forward to it returning next week. 

I thought a lot about what to write about this week.  Although the week has been quieter than most, there were several good meetings, including two with members of the Assumption Foundation and another with John Cooper, Vice President at St. Ambrose.  We also held a Finance Committee meeting Friday morning regarding the budget for the upcoming year.  It has been a good time to get caught up on some things that were pushed to the backburner when dealing with the day-to-day activities of Assumption.

However, instead of focusing on this week’s activities, I would like to focus on something very important to me and to our Catholic schools:  tuition assistance.  

Now before you hit the red X in the corner of this window because, “I’ve heard this before,” give me a couple more lines.

I’ve spent a lot of time looking over a plethora of numbers regarding enrollment at our local schools, tuition assistance, number of Catholics at local parishes, baptisms at local parishes, etc. to paint a picture of what has happened in our schools over the last 10 years.  The information is staggering. 

I won’t make this this update overly complex by throwing out a bunch of numbers; instead let’s look at one number:  35%.  This is the percentage of students in our Scott County Catholic Schools who are currently receiving some type of financial assistance.  Many of you have heard me use this number before, but let’s put it into perspective.  Of the 1,830 students enrolled in our schools, 648 students receive aid, including 30% of Assumption students.  What would happen if that aid were not available?  Assumption alone could potentially lose 130 students, substantially decreasing enrollment.  Teachers and programs would be cut. Tuition would increase at a significant rate.  Morale would suffer.   Things would be very….very….challenging.

Luckily, through the generosity, hard work, and determination of many individuals, these things have not happened. 

What has happened?  We have been able to provide tuition assistance to 648 students this year.  The ten year average for Assumption enrollment is 420 students; starting this year we had 437. Approximately 130 Assumption students receive the financial aid that enables them to receive a great education.  Instead of cutting teachers and programs, we are constantly exploring ways to increase offerings.  Parish subsidy has decreased at 1% annually over the last seven years.  The average Catholic high school tuition in the United States is $9,000. Assumption tuition for the 2012-2013 school year is set at $4,570, roughly half the national average.  The senior classes will receive well over $3 million in scholarship money this year.  Year after year we celebrate successes throughout our many academic, athletic, and fine arts programs.  To summarize, what has happened? Too many great things to write without making this a 6 page update.  

In short, things are good.

That certainly doesn’t mean we should sit back and relax with the “we’ve made it” mentality.  There are still challenges ahead, challenges which will necessitate continued support of the success of all Scott County Catholic Schools.  Together we can overcome these challenges and continue to move forward celebrating the many successes along the way.   

I look forward to many years of celebrating success with all of you.

Weekly Update 3/9/2012

Before I get into the updates for the week, I have some congratulations to extend: to Emma Simmons, Mundo Cadena, Patrick Kakert, Kevin McCabe, Andrew McCabe, and A.J. Skinner for their participation in the St. Ambrose Honor Band; to the boys basketball team on a wonderful season; and to the girls’ basketball team on back-to-back state championships! It has been an exciting winter for all our students.  I am sure there are many more successes to come as the school year draws to a close.

A couple of updates from the week:

I spent Monday at an AEA meeting with area schools on the 1:1 initiative and how to best revise Acceptable Use Policies to meet the ever changing landscape of technology. There was a lot of great information exchanged, including best practices for 1:1 initiatives and examples of Acceptable Use Policy changes that we will reference as we refine our own policy.

 

The board continued the evaluation process with a work session on Monday night.  I truly feel the process they have implemented for administrator evaluations is productive and accomplishes the task of helping us to grow.

  

We have finalized a plan to increase bandwidth at Assumption.  No more wasting time waiting in class for a YouTube video to load. Our bandwidth will expand from 1.5 mbs to 10 mbs on July 1, 2012.  This was a tremendous team effort on the part of our grade schools and Assumption.  In partnering together, we were able to decrease everyone’s monthly costs and possibly create some new ways to communicate information between schools.  I am so glad this was able to accomplished, and thank all of our grade schools for their patience and support as we pursued this agreement.

 

We were presented with a new challenge this week, when we discovered that we have about 500 feet of domestic hot water line that needs to be replaced. Eric Leuth was nice enough to snap some pictures of the lines and the deterioration is very evident - I really have never seen anything like it!  Not to worry, we have already received two bids and they are not as scary as first anticipated.  We will continue to explore our options.  

Have a great weekend!

Weekly Update 3/2/2011

Anyone tired of making the trip to Des Moines yet?  I hope not!  We have another exciting week of state tournament play coming up - let’s hope we have to make four more wonderful drives. Good luck to the girls on Saturday night in the state championship game.  Let’s go Knights!

Special thanks to the Century Club, Booster Club, Trish Zinger, Wade King and all who made the girls basketball sendoff successful.

During the administrative meeting this week we spent a lot of time talking about the future, technology upgrades, and how best to prepare our students for the world they will be working and living in.  Since we are knee deep in the budgeting process we will be placing added emphasis on finding ways to give our students not only the best education, but also the education most relevant to their future lives.  

Speaking of budgeting, the process is progressing well.  We are going through all requests, discussing adjustments that should be made, and finalizing numbers.  Thanks to Carey Jones for the hours she puts into the budget, and also for having patience when I cause her more work with out-of-the-box budget ideas.  

I have recently had a couple meetings with the World Leadership Organization.  This organization coaches executives on ways to improve and also works on strategic development of organizations.  I am hoping that we can develop a relationship that will not only help me grow as a leader, but also help Assumption move forward as an organization.

The K-12 marketing meeting met Thursday and had a great discussion about current marketing initiatives at each of our schools.  We will continue to explore ways to market all of our Catholic schools together.

We held another meeting on Friday about internet speed.  I am very excited about the most recent quote we received, which opened up a ton of new possibilities for partnerships between Assumption and the grade schools.  We have one more hurdle to overcome and hopefully that will all be cleared up in my phone conference this afternoon.   

Looks like the snow is really starting to come down now!  Be safe on the roads this weekend and I hope to see you all in Des Moines.  

Have a great weekend.

Weekly Update 2/24/12

I am sure ending the week with a two hour late start just breaks the hearts of our student body.  The only thing that would be worse would be canceling on a Friday:)

We started the week with Administrative and Board Meetings on Monday.  Once again a lot of the Admin Meeting was spent planning for coverage of upcoming events.  With three tournament basketball games and a band concert, it certainly made for a busy week.  Items discussed at the Board Meeting included:  administrator evaluation process, topics being discussed by the SIAC committee, ongoing exploration of heating and air, enrollment projections, potential marketing committee changes, staff salary comparison of Scott County Catholic Schools and Assumption financial statements.  

Enrollment for next year is progressing very well with 85 students already registered, hopefully indicating another respectably sized freshman class for Assumption.  Typically we do not have this many students registered at this time of the year.  Emily Faulhaber is certainly doing a nice job getting Assumption out in front of the grade school students.

We continue to work on the budget process for the upcoming school year.  With subsidy set and a good idea of where enrollment will be, we are fairly certain on the revenue side of things.  We are now knee deep in the hard work of figuring out expenditures.  For those of you who aren’t aware, every year budget sheets are given to our academic department chairs, as well as individuals in charge of departments such as admissions, technology and athletics.  Our people are allowed to adjust their budget based on perceived needs, allowing us the ability to have a good dialogue about potential budgetary changes.   

Ash Wednesday was celebrated with Mass and a great homily by Fr. Tom. The music in mass was fantastic, and it was a wonderful service in general.  Thanks to all those who made it happen. 

We spent another week of teacher in-service working on the Iowa Core Alignment Tool.  Teachers seem to understand the process, which isn’t surprising given the caliber of our staff. 

Eric Leuth and I met with contractors Thursday to clarify the phasing plan we are hoping to utilize for our new heating system in order to get a properly structured price bid. It was great to hear that we will be able to phase this project given the initial price estimates we have seen.    

The Scott County principals met  on Friday to discuss the following issues:  decoding the new Iowa Assessment data, how to reimburse teachers for the summer math workshop, how we could still partner on increasing bandwidth, organization of a Scott County Catholic School tech coordinator meeting, the new JMC online program and hosting of the service, 5th grade band concert details, procedures for Catholic league athletics, how the SCRA grant process works, and whether the Diocese will be putting together a CIPA(Child Internet Protection Act) policy.

Finally, I know there were a lot of events this week, but I feel the need to highlight one performance.  I was so impressed with our band on Thursday night.  Ms. Wulfekuhle took a gamble and had her student sight read a piece, giving those in attendance a look into how she teaches a new piece of music.  She talked about higher order thinking skills and explained how the students learn new music. Amazing job band and Ms. Wulfekuhle!

Weekly Update 2/17/12

What an exciting week to be a Knight!  Congrats to Ellen Williamson and the AHS choir on a wonderful performance Monday night.  I was so impressed with the caliber of music showcased by our talented students.  Congrats to alum Coach Pete Bush on capturing back-to-back state wrestling championships Wednesday night.  For those of you that were there or tuned in on the radio, it was certainly a night to remember.  Keep the trains rolling on today and Saturday.  Congrats to girls’ basketball and Coach Mallory Youngblut on their first round victory on the road to state, and good luck Saturday.  The things our students continue to accomplish never cease to amaze me.

A couple of happenings from this week:

With all of the events this week, much of the administrative team meeting was spent on logistical details for who would be where, when.  One of the things that people seldom see is the amount of behind the scenes planning that goes into the organization of weeks with this many exciting events.  It is great to work with a team where everyone chips in to make sure things runs smoothly for our students, sponsors, coaches, parents and fans.  

We also spent some time in the Administrative meeting discussing academic issues such as our pass/fail policy, auditing classes, the Regents admission index, grading scales and class rank.  I know it seems like these issues come up every few years, but we continue to assess our current practices to make sure we are doing the right things for our students. 

We will once again be completing the 360⁰ evaluation process we began last year.  This provides faculty, staff, and board members with a chance to review the performance of administration.  Last year it was great experience not only hear what people felt were strengths, but also areas for improvement.  It made our annual evaluation process a valuable improvement tool.

We continued our Iowa Core Alignment Tool training for teachers on Wednesday.  They are working to determine the areas where we need to address the 21^st century skills as stated in the Iowa core document.  One of the best things to come from this process is the discussion our teachers are having as a result of these meetings.  Every conversation should be leading us to a better understanding of how to make Assumption a better school.

After the marketing meeting this week we spent a lot of time discussing ways to improve the functioning of the committee.  Questions that were brought up during the meeting lead us to critique how each of us saw the committee functioning.  We will continue to look at ways to make this a committee that accomplishes the task of successfully marketing Assumption. 

We have a Scott County Principals’ meeting scheduled for this afternoon.  Issues scheduled to be discussed include: Iowa Assessment data, summer math workshop, bandwidth, tech coordinator meeting, and JMC.  It is always great to discuss ways that we can collaborate and work to solve problems together.

Good luck to the wrestlers and basketball teams this weekend.  Have a great weekend and as always give me a call or send an email with questions.

Weekly Update 2/10/12

The mobile laptop lab went live this week and within the span of an hour was already booked for classroom use.  So for the response and usage has been great.  Of course, all great initiatives have their share of nuances which need to be dealt with and this project has been no exception.   The good thing is having gone through the set up process has taught me lessons that will make future technology deployment much easier. 

We are currently undergoing a study on printer usage within the school.  One technology issue that has been frustrating for both teachers and students is availability of printers.  The study is actually a program on our server which tracks the use of each printer so we can tell where our “hot spots” are and if we need to look at alternative solutions for the approximately 15 printers  in the school right now.

The finishing touches are being put on our brand new sound system in the large gym. The last component will be the addition of an antenna to provide for better connect ability for our wireless mics.

Wednesday I attended a conference on the financial market and tax outlook for 2012.  The purpose was to give individuals and businesses a look at potential tax changes in the upcoming year.  There was a ton of great information, especially for a person that loves learning about the economy and financial markets.  To summarize the opinion of the presenter: Europe will enter a recession, there will be moderate to sub-par growth in the US, unemployment will drop slightly and housing should begin to see some recovery.  We shall see how these predictions play out.

 

I had a great experience speaking at All Saints this week about the Family Tuition Plan.  They had two sessions for incoming Kindergarten parents, one in the morning and one in the evening. Both were well attended and the FTP information was well received.  It seems as though our parents are starting to have a better knowledge of tuition assistance options, but we still need to keep getting the message out.

 

I lead the teacher professional development on Wednesday and we spent our hour working on the Iowa Core Alignment Tool or ICAT. This session was the “ICAT camp” where our teachers worked through the introductory information.  We will spend the next three weeks working through the ICAT tool. 

  

Tonight is Pack the Stadium Knight as both our boys and girls basketball teams have the chance to secure MAC championships.  Tomorrow our wrestlers head to Mount Vernon for sectionals.  I hope to see all of you at some point this weekend!

Updates for the Week 2/3/12

Catholic Schools Week is drawing to a close, with the highlight again this year being All School Mass on Thursday.  It is such a great experience and atmosphere not only for our students, but also the students in our Catholic grade schools.  Special thanks to Miss Faulhaber, Mrs. Day, Miss Pohlmann, Mr. Ries and Mr. Elbert for all of the hard work they put into the service.  The day tends to be very hectic, but they handled it with grace and put on a great service.

Our continued quest for increased internet speed and has certainly resulted in a lot of research about Assumption, some of which called for a trip through the tunnels underneath the school.  There is nothing better than wearing dress clothes and traipsing through a 4 foot high mud floored tunnel.  One reason for taking part in this adventure was to better understand the wiring of the school, which made it easier to explain our current situation to the contractor we talked with on Thursday.  Over the long term, it seems that bringing fiber optic cabling into our building is the best possible resolution, and we will receive bids for this early next week.

    

The process of determining the best possible solution for our heating and cooling needs continued this week with more meetings, walkthroughs and proposals.  Information will be flowing in over the next several months and we will continue to evaluate our options as we move closer to budget time.

 

Thursday night we held our informational 8^th grade parent meeting.  It was well attended and our faculty and staff did a great job presenting the ways Assumption provides not only a great education, but also enhances social development.  Eric Ries did an excellent job presenting on the transition from the grade school to high school.  Since I frequently boast about the benefits of being a part of the Assumption Family, it was great to hear our other administrators delivering the same strong message to our future parents and students.

Finally, we spent some time this week working on a new development campaign for AHS.  We are still in the initial planning phases of this process, so more on that to come!

Have a great weekend!