Scot Graden – Superintendent of Saline Area Schools
Posted in Uncategorized on Dec 30th, 2009
As we end the first decade of the 21st century, I have been thinking back to what Saline Area Schools was in January, 2000. We had 4,980 students enrolled in the fall, up 173 from the previous year. (We now have 5,450.) This marked our 9th consecutive year of 100+ more students enrolled, with a [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on Dec 29th, 2009
I was recently sent a copy of a New York Times Op-Ed piece about the mission of high schools in public education based on some of the language in the Race to the Top guidelines. The opinion piece notes, No longer is it enough just to graduate students, or even prepare them for college. Schools [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on Dec 23rd, 2009
Lately I’ve been thinking about one’s judgment and decision making. The saying goes, with good judgment, little else matters and without good judgment, nothing else matters. Judgment is the essence of leadership. In the face of instability, uncertainty and conflicting demands, the quality of a leader’s judgment determines the fate of the entire organization. That [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on Dec 23rd, 2009
I began the Superintendent’s Blog just over two years ago. In that time I have made 243 posts, received 152 comments, along with 3,580 comments blocked as spam. If you have been reading along, hopefully you have learned about the district and my perspective on Saline Area Schools. I encourage you to comment on posts [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on Dec 22nd, 2009
The Detroit Free Press recently ran an editorial about the Michigan economy and what the future holds for our State. The editorial noted, “The future belongs to the smart states — and Michigan had better be among those states if it expects a better one. People who learn are also people who change, challenge, adapt [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on Dec 21st, 2009
I have been giving a lot of thought to what options we have to use the digital age to our advantage in an innovative manner. As the State has reduced funding for education and our State Superintendent has asked us to “reimagine” education – I feel we don’t have a choice, but to get creative….and [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on Dec 19th, 2009
It’s been hard finding the time to keep up on my reading, but I have been able to read some more of Catching Up or Leading the Way by Yong Zhao. I recently read the chapter on technology where he made several interesting observations about the past and future. “Businesses, governments, academics and the media [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on Dec 19th, 2009
In preparation for the December 14th Community Conversation, I gathered information on the support of the PTO/A groups in our District. I was astounded to learn this school year our PTO/A’s are raising and spending in our $220,000 this year! Digging into the details reveals that of this amount over $44,000 of it supports field [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on Dec 9th, 2009
At the end of last year our Facilities Department implemented an online work order/trouble ticket process to manage and track repairs and maintenance needs. Recently, we reviewed the workflow for the 1st half of the school year. Since July, there have been 1,178 “tickets” placed and 1,153 have completed. This is an outstanding ticket completion [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on Dec 6th, 2009
This is the time of year when we begin to think about snow days. For the next four months we will be watching and listening to weather reports to be ready for the early morning decision – should we hold school today? It’s not a secret that in general, I would prefer we not have [...]