2014 saw many more incidents in our K12 schools than ever before. Both Michigan and Ohio schools experienced bomb threats, weapons in buildings, suspicious packages and more. Teachers and administrators can be caught off guard by bomb threats, weapons, bullying, and countless other disruptions. Dialing 9-1-1 is important—but what happens during the ensuing wait time is absolutely critical for better safety. Is your school properly prepared to handle these kinds of situations?
Blog Archives
Safety Crisis at School
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Is your school ready for an emergency—severe weather, earthquake, chemical spill—or worse—an intruder? CrisisGo keeps your staff active, informed, and prepared to handle even the most difficult situations
2015 MACUL Tech Conference
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The annual 2015 MACUL Tech Conference will be this March 18-20th in Detroit ––expecting over 4,500 attendees. Packed with innovative technology, you should look for all kinds of educational tools, including updates from NAIKU, CrisisGo, Brainchild and more.
Standardized Scores
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Most all students in Michigan are required to take a formal, summative assessment called the MEAP Test. In 2015 (or thereabouts) we will start to see a transition to the Smarter Balanced Assessment. This will run in parallel with MEAP for a few years. In states like Illinois and Indiana, there are similar initiatives underway. As a result, all students will be measured using a similar tool. This makes data analysis and comparisons more direct.
Urgency to Improve?
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During the last several weeks, statewide testing results for individual districts have been released. These are the annual MEAP scores in Michigan. There were definitely some bright spots to boost hopefulness about education in our public schools.
But as I visit a number of districts with greater “pain points” in Math and ELA, I get a sense that there is no immediacy to solving the problems of poor student performance. One administrator told me that they are leaving these decisions up to individual buildings to decide their course of action to improve. Isn’t that odd?