A Cut Above

Dancing or Skating? The high school Semi-Formal Dance, New York City themed, had an indoor ice rink. Who does that? Our students do, that's who. Every year I think the advisers and students have reached the top of the mountain of decorating; and then they outdo themselves. Add incredibly respectful student attendees and a great DJ to the mix and you have a special night.

Saturday night was special and over 800 students enjoyed a fantastic evening with their friends. A VERY special thanks to our parent and staff volunteers, administrators, and the Camillus Police Department (who all dressed in their semi-formal attire as well) for a terrific evening.

A Partnership for Good Health: We have been working on a large partnership with the American Heart Association to bring a large-scale wellness effort to the District for our employees. We are completing our walk around the world challenge and this new partnership with the American Heart Association will allow us to expand our wellness efforts (to those who want to work on being healthy) into the areas of blood pressure, heart rate, cholesterol, and body mass index.

The cool thing is that when we launch this initiative after the holidays, we will be able to expand it to include students and/or whole families who want to participate. The benefit of partnering with a large organization for this effort is that we can use their resources, rewards, and tools at no cost. Stay tuned after the holidays for this exciting opportunity.

Trying Something New: This blog gets read by over 5,000 people each time it is posted (some posts get close to ten thousand), but I think we can do even better. While I was watching 60 Minutes a few weeks ago, I noticed that after their main stories, they had Internet links you could visit to get more about the story.

With that in mind, I am going to experiment with a podcast that will help to introduce you to the Wildcat family, and also expand on topics of interest. I am working with Rob Leo, Coordinator of Instructional Technology, to find the right tool to use so that it is familiar to you and easy to use if you are new to podcasts. I always treat the use of new communication technology as an experiment (As examples, Twitter was my first experiment, and it worked out; Instagram was another experiment that did not work out) so be on the lookout for that after the holidays as well.

Technology Article: Speaking of Rob Leo, he is responsible for the professional development for the technology we make available to students and staff.  If you are a school leader or educator reading this, check out the article that he recently had published about the professional development model behind all of the Chromebooks that schools are receiving through the federal Smart Schools Bond Act. It is fantastic and a model to be emulated for sure.

Clearing My Head: Every Saturday or Sunday morning, I go on a "long" run, of somewhere between six and ten miles. When I started running, I could barely breathe, let alone talk. As I have gotten into better shape, those runs have become great conversation time with my running partners, Jim and Mike (pictured). I always chuckle when people see us talking while we run, wondering what they think we are actually talking about.

The past couple of weeks have been about whether the impact of Brexit has been worse for Ireland or London (we think Ireland), and the potential impact of the upcoming tax law changes by income bracket for individuals and businesses (not sure enough to officially comment). Riveting stuff. At any rate, it is a good time for me to clear my head, NOT talk shop, and get some miles in with great people!

Busy week ahead. I am sure I will see you at something. Enjoy the week!

Chris