Category Archives: Schools and Assessment

Reaching out to homeless students

By Steve Atwater | Published: November 11, 2012
One of the assumed parts of being an educator is a willingness to place the needs of students above one’s own.  Service for our students plays out in a number of ways including teachers working with students during lunch and spending a Saturday morning leading a student activity.  I was reminded last night at the candlelight vigil […]
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Blended Learning

By Steve Atwater | Published: October 27, 2012
For the past couple of years we’ve been discussing how best to meet the learning needs of our Soldotna area high school students.  With the enrollment at our two Soldotna traditional high schools at less than 800, we are exploring whether it makes sense to combine the two schools or leave them alone and let […]
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Student activities an important part of school

By Steve Atwater | Published: October 14, 2012
Yesterday I attended the two state football championship games that were held in Chugiak.  Although the weather was poor, it was good to see our teams from Homer, Nikiski and Soldotna high schools compete at this level.  Besides watching the games, the contests allowed me to say hello and observe many of our student athletes’ […]
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Helping to better define the boundaries

By Steve Atwater | Published: October 6, 2012
On Thursday evening assistant superintendent Dusek and I attended a community meeting at Homer High School that was called in response to a horrific incident that occurred at an off-campus party.  Because students were present at the party, the school by association was involved.  As is always the case with this sort of incident where […]
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New items and time

By Steve Atwater | Published: September 23, 2012
  Last spring while at a school function on a Wednesday evening, I let my mind wander to calculate how much time I spent at work that week.  Later that night on the ride home I hit 40 hours.  I don’t share this to boast; I know that our principals and teachers have similar weeks […]
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Chicago teacher strike and evaluation

By Steve Atwater | Published: September 14, 2012
This week’s teacher strike in Chicago is one that everyone in education is closely watching; it is about much more than money.  Besides the city’s demand to lengthen the workday and school year, the trickiest issue is the city, following the federal lead, wanting to include student performance as a part of a teacher’s evaluation. […]
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Lifelong learners

By Steve Atwater | Published: September 9, 2012
Last night I had a good conversation with a neighbor about the limitations of narrowing a secondary education as a way to concentrate on the preparation for a career or job skill.  The premise of our talk was that throughout our teens and 20s you are constantly changing and that selection of a destination at […]
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Alaska needs to pay for preschool

By Steve Atwater | Published: September 3, 2012
As is usually the case, one of the recurring themes of this election season is referencing the American dream with candidates providing numerous examples of individuals taking the initiative to overcome the limitations of their circumstance. This is usually followed by the insistence that this dream can best occur when government gets out of the […]
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More than one learning style

By Steve Atwater | Published: August 26, 2012
School started with a bang last Tuesday with about 8,000 students passing through our doors.  At the same time, about another 800 started their homeschooling as part of our Connections program.  I visited 8 schools last week and as always, was amazed at the wide range of learning environments that our students experience.  Classrooms next […]
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Teachers making a personal connection

By Steve Atwater | Published: August 17, 2012
Earlier this week during our district-wide inservice, I spoke to the staff about the need to focus our attention on those variables (that we can control) that affect student learning.  Specifically, I mentioned the need to support and provide effective instruction.  Later that day, a teacher mentioned that while effective instruction is important, it is […]
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