Many of you have already experienced and/or seen school start for the 2012-13 school year.  Most of the rest of you---including those of you just about everywhere in Texas---will begin this Monday. 

We talk a lot in this country about the condition of our schools and how to improve their performance.  We talk about what teachers should do, what principals should do, what school boards and superintendents should do.  It seems, in fact, that quite often the talk is perhaps too focused on what the schools should do better absent the broader picture furthering the cause.


Our entire country would be proportionally healthier to the degree we all remember that as much as we need quality schools functioning properly and engaging in continuous improvement, we just as importantly need true parental involvement and continuous growth in that effort.  We desperately need parents and others in the community introspecting about the role they play and how to take that crucial responsibility to a new level in whatever way they feel will make a difference. 


Schooling in America should improve every year.  Parenting in America should improve every year.  If both are on this trajectory---each considering how they can further support the mutual mission they both share, i.e. the strengthening of our individuals, families, and children as a part of one community---we will improve our great country together.  Most of us believe this country is in critical need of strengthening right about NOW!

This location was so nice I stayed there twice, once on my way into Alaska and the second time on my way out.  The picture above with John & Jill's granddaughters sitting on the Cycle of Education is of the more modern cabin I slept in my first time through.  The one just above and below this paragraph is of the more rustic cabin.  In the two pictures of the rustic cabin you can see the stream that runs by all of the cabins on the property.  It is crystal clear and flows such that it always sounds as if a light rain is falling outside.

A bountiful, scrumptious dinner with the family is included in the cost of a night's stay.  This was the best food I ate while in Alaska!  Breakfast is also included.  Both are served in the dining room of the beautifully decorated main house pictured below.


John will even offer to take guests on a tour of the property in his all-terrain vehicle, where---beyond the wonderful scenery---moose, bear, and other wildlife can often be spotted. 


In fact, moose and bear are known to meander around the lodge itself, like this moose right outside of the back door of the main house by the kid's play cabin!


The view in the photo immediately above and below this paragraph is what you'll be treated to at the third BnB I very much enjoyed up north---> Kluane Bed & Breakfast.  It is located on the shore of Kluane Lake just outside of Destruction Bay in the Yukon Territory.


The cabin I stayed in (below) sleeps at least three, has cable television, and breakfast is included.  There is no wifi here.  The bathroom is directly next door in the main lodge building, as are a couple of other rooms and the dining hall.

A joke I heard several times in Alaska asked "how can someone tell for sure if they are in Alaska or in Canada?"  Answer, "just look at the street signs to see if they have been shot or not." 

After hearing the joke, I laughed each time I saw a wounded street sign in Alaska, which was quite often.  True to the joke, it was not at all common in Canada.

Over the past few decades there has been an ever increasing attempt to collect data on schools in the areas of:

• school performance (example, is "adequate yearly progress" being achieved)

• matters of compliance (example, are the rules and regulations of grant programs and other funding mechanisms such as "average daily attendance" being adhered to)

• areas of perceived potential injustice (example, are particular/all minorities achieving and disciplined consistent with the same for other student groups in the school)

For years this was done on paper, then in more static spreadsheet and word processing apps, and now increasingly utilizing 21st century data-base management tools.  Still, we tend to collect a bunch of data to 'report out' (to the state, the feds, etc.) without really using the data much beyond that to analyze, inform, and effect decision-making. 


There are so many examples that we are in this stage of development which I intend to elaborate on in future posts.  In this post, though, introducing one of the facades at play in the discipline programs most of our schools are practicing, I would like to differentiate between 'software discipline tools' designed primarily to address the function of reporting out data to meet state and federal requirements for the reasons above versus a true discipline tool that make the actual labor of running a discipline program on a school campus more efficient, effective, and professional --->all the while less burdensome.

Most schools now use software to manage grades, attendance, and other such reporting aspects of running a school.  Commonly these are referred to as "student management systems" or "student information systems," the SMS or SIS, respectively.  Most of these software programs were adopted by schools for the primary purpose of collecting and reporting out data --->grades, attendance, discipline, student schedules, and other data that is input and reported out.  Where they go beyond the primary purpose of gathering and reporting data (and even often to this end), they tend to be rather thin in utility and clunky in execution.  Many are only now trying to add 'modules' to be able to tout doing it all in one mammoth piece of software, but they tend to do so superficially and often with the result of an even clunkier piece of software.

True discipline tools, such as EdClick's Discipline Manager, go way beyond what any of these primarily reporting tools do.  They actually facilitate the discipline process on a campus.  They streamline and inform referrals as well as resulting administrative actions (consequences), increase communication among all involved as well as others who can influence future behavior, improve follow-through and overall compliance, offer management solutions for more creative and appropriate consequences, offer diagnostic and proactive components, create increased deterrence in numerous ways, and so much more.

Rather than being primarily a data collection and reporting tool like the SIS and SMS systems tend to be, true discipline (software) tools go beyond that facade of effectiveness to being truly instrumental tools that can improve the discipline climate on any campus, regardless of their current relative effectiveness.

I will further develop this distinction in coming posts by elaborating on what discipline (software) tools that are not mere facades should do.  EdClick's Discipline Manager was developed from in the trenches, by school administrators, to make doing the job (not mere reporting) more effective and less burdensome with much improved outcomes. 

Now that school is back in session through much of the country, with the rest soon to follow, the subject of discipline in the schools is ripe for discussion.  Accordingly, over the next few weeks I intend to pick up a discussion on the topic I started a couple of months ago on this blog as the last school year was coming to a conclusion.


Sometimes things aren't what they appear to be.  Discipline programs in our schools are an example, as are the 21st century tools used to facilitate those discipline programs.  The perception is that they are doing certain things that they often just are not doing. 

When I was riding in the Yukon Territory of Canada and came upon the police car pictured above sitting by the road, upon closer inspection I realized it was a facade---attempting to establish order---rather than the real deal.  Many of our schools have discipline programs and discipline tools that are in one way, shape, or form mere facades designed to give the appearance of established order that---upon closer inspection---fail the test of achieving, or at least maximizing, effectiveness.