Wolf Creek School District Video Conference

Our guest speaker today was Dr. Larry Jacobs, the Superintendent of the Wolf Creek School District.  Larry’s engaging introduction, a true/false game allowed us to get to know a little about him on a more personal level.  This was a unique way to build rapport quickly and effectively.  It was evident that he has a strong passion and commitment for improving student learning. 

Today Larry discussed the three organizational structures as traditional, a top down approach to leading; flat where people have some input; and Vision Led which was the approach he felt was most effective. This approach allows the people closest to the problems to be involved in both the decision making process, and with implementation of the solutions.  He did note that one disadvantage of the third approach is that it can take a long time to see progress and success.

Larry stressed that having a “mission is the core, central purpose and we must have this in order to move forward.  When decisions are based on the mission statement they are very easy to defend if everyone has been brought in.” I think this was a significant point!  I also agreed with his comment that people will dismiss a mission statement if it doesn’t lead to something happening.

Both Superintendents adopted a visionary model and stressed the significance and value of hearing the voice of not only the principals, but also students and teachers during the decision making process.  I think people appreciate this and may work harder to achieve goals when they feel the goals are relevant.  Collaboration is a reoccurring theme in both the articles and in the presentations.

In today’s presentation Larry did not directly outline IT education as a focus however he stressed that to improve learning, his primary goal, technology must be woven into the fabric of the curriculum.  Larry also spoke about the importance of supporting teachers by providing embedded PD so they are more effectively using technology for learning.  He talked about the mission statement “learners of a lifetime” and modeled this philosophy today when he used video conferencing for the first time to communicate with us.