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Tuseday, March 5, 2013
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Volume 53 Edition 21
Senchina shares district plans after Wells After a number of dramatic reversals, Superintendent Mike Wells resigned at a board meeting on Wednesday, Feb. 27. The board voted 5-2 in favor of accepting his resignation. About 100 people attended the meeting, including a number that help signs supporting Wells. A number of them stood to clap well he entered the meeting. The resignation was accepted after it was clear that the board was prepared to recommend that he not be rehired for next year after falling short of the board’s expectations in recent performance reviews. These reviews was held in closed sessions, and the board has stressed that it will keep the details private. Though these details will never be known, many are still wondering what will remain of the district’s recent innovative initiatives now that Wells will no longer he leading the district next. Board President Deon Senchina explained the district’s plans in a recent interview: Now that Mike Wells is resigning, how will this affect the changes he has been pushing for? Are plans for a new high school/high school renovation still going to be carried out? (Bilingual education, academies, etc?) Mr. Wells was hired to achieve the district’s initiatives, like the high school
and K-6 foreign language goals. No one person can implement a major goal in a district our size. Administrators and teachers will continue their work until each goal is reached. The next superintendent will also work on these goals just as Mr. Wells has. When will the school board start searching for a new superintendent? How long will the process take? The board will begin the search process for a new superintendent very soon. The search will include the input and participation of many different stakeholder groups. An end date has not yet been established. What is in store for the rest of the school year with Mike Wells? Mr. Wells’ contract continues through June 30. Last Wednesday he said “I will finish the year out with a professional attitude, and continue to work hard to move the district forward.” Has the social media input from community members affected school board decisions? When the possibility of Mr. Wells leaving became public Monday, board members received messages via emails, phone calls and social media. As a board we want to hear from stakeholders and their input is carefully considered. One frequently asked question was why the board held “secret” meetings. Several people believe they have a right
to know the reasons for our action. I’d like to answer that question from three different perspectives. 1) From a personal side, would you want your boss at work to conduct your annual performance review while coworkers and customers listened? 2) Iowa code requires the board to have all meetings open to the public except in a few cases. The superintendent’s evaluation meeting is closed only if the superintendent asks that the meeting be closed. Mr. Wells asked to have the first five sessions closed and then asked the meeting last Wednesday to be open. 3) Mr. Wells contract is a personnel issue and the board has an ethical and legal responsibility to keep the reasons for the board’s final decision confidential. There’s a reaction seen from the community that the school board doesn’t want change, what changes does the school board actually want to see happen within the next few years? Changes in the district are not often seen or known because they aren’t something “visible” like new buildings. There has been a tremendous amount of change in the last six years. Many of them focus on our biggest shift: a change in focus to student learning experiences instead of teaching methods.
Board supported changes in the last six years: Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) Major renovations at Holmes & Peet Junior High Schools Leader in Me Iowa Core Curriculum (ICC) Instructional Decision Making (IDM) Authentic Intellectual Work (AIW) Major additions at Southdale & Hansen increasing to 4 section schools Physical Education Development (PEP grant) School Administration Manager (SAM) Daily reading in all subject areas K-12 STEM--Science, Tech, Engineering & Math Mr. Wells was hired to advance several planned and in process goals including the decision to build or renovate the high school, improve student use of technology, and K-6 foreign language. Future goals include 1) possibly building a seventh elementary school, 2) an International Baccalaureate Program (IP) and 3) additional collaborations with Hawkeye and UNI to add even more technical and college level courses to our high school offerings. By Staff Writer Amanda
Harwood
Multitasking, now a part of everyday life
More often than not, people are doing more than one thing at a time without knowing it Living in this day in age, our brains have been molded to try and do multiple things at once. A very common phenomenon is now taking place: multitasking. It happens all the time, even when people don’t even realize, like when they cook and watch TV at the same time, or when they eat and text, or even when they are on Facebook and listening to music at the same time. “Multitasking is my middle name,” junior Karly Izer said. “No matter what I’m doing, I’m almost always texting while I do it,” senior Krista Fretheim said. “Except driving. That’s illegal!” she added. The main reason why people consciously multitask is to save time. There is so much going on that sometimes the only way to get everything done is to combine all of the tasks in order to accomplish everything faster. “During sports seasons when I get home late, I almost always eat while doing my home-
work or I wouldn’t have time to get everything done before I go to bed,” Fretheim said. Senior Abby Burgart said the same. “It’s hard for me to focus on one thing because I have so much going on.” While doing physical activities, multitasking can provide good results, but not as much as when it requires some brainpower. It can be dangerous (and, of course illegal for teens) like when one drives and talks on the phone at the same time. According to research, the human brain is not designed to process more than one stream of information and encode it into short-term memory at a time. This means that at times, multitasking doesn’t really solve the problem. When one can’t remember the information because one didn’t learn it properly or memorize it, one can’t access it. Burgart agreed that multitasking may not give her the best results all the time. That is not the only reason multitask-
ing can make one less efficient. People tend to think that focusing on something specifically is much harder nowadays due to all of the gadgets available, like cellphones, tablets, computer and TV, but multitasking has always existed and has always been a problem. “It is very easy to get distracted: when your favorite TV show comes on, when your boyfriend texts you, when your grandma calls,” Izer said. Today’s teens say they need to keep many tasks going to keep stimulated. “When I multitask while doing homework, it’s definitely just because I’m bored,” Fretheim said. This also happens to Izer, who has a hard time doing only one thing for a long period of time. “When I have a chore or something to do, I will study for a couple of minutes, do some of that chore and then go back to studying. It makes it so I’m not doing the same thing for a ton of time while getting things done,” she said. People who multitask the most are
actually the most likely to be bad at it. Focusing becomes a major problem and productivity decreases significantly. According to a recent study in England, those who had the best scores were not used to doing several things at once, and because they could pay much more attention to what they had to do, they did it more consciously than those who multitasked very often, so they didn’t get distracted easily. To avoid distractions, Fretheim tries to ignore them, which doesn’t work all the time, she said. “[Establishing limits and goals] is the only way I get any homework done. My reward is always letting myself go on Twitter”, she said, laughing. “Usually when I’m doing homework I have to lock myself away or I will never get anything done. I try not to watch TV while doing homework because I will get way too distracted and then feel terrible about myself,” Izer said. By Staff Writer Ana
CUNHA