Leader 2 Leader

Kirstie Gabaldon President-elect, Florida Association of School Administrators Assistant Principal, Creekside High School, St. Johns County  “Let us think of education as the means of developing our greatest abilities, because in each of us there is a private hope and dream which, fulfilled, can be translated into Benefit for everyone and greater strength for our nation.” ~ John F. Kennedy  “I teach. What’s your superpower?” Anon. Visitors arriving at Creekside High School comment that the school feels like a college campus, or how happy everyone looks, or that the school feels like a positive place. What generates this atmosphere is not a well-placed palm tree or bench (although we have those), nor is it the tall rotunda, or shiny red paint. I would argue that what generates this atmosphere is confidence. At Creekside we have focused on developing opportunities for our 2,000 students to explore and discover what they are interested in, and where their talents may...

Mark E Shanoff, Ed. D President, Florida Association of School Administrators Principal, Ocoee Middle School  Currently, the students, teachers and school leaders in Florida are leading their schools without the standardized assessment data we have become accustomed to in years past. What’s worse is when the data is eventually released, the validity of the data has been called into question by practitioners and leaders from across the State. And, once the data is released in January, more instructional time will have passed since the students took the exam than instructional time exists before the next round of FSA testing. It used to be that the politics surrounding student assessment, albeit distracting, didn’t impact the planning and delivery of an instructional program based on the previous year’s data. In fact, school leaders relied on that data, to make placement decisions and lineup changes. But today, the politics of student assessment and the absence of any actio...