Category Archives: Schools and Assessment

Keeping our Teachers Hungry

By Steve Atwater | Published: April 18, 2011
Last week I was in Anchorage to help our HR department with the hiring process at the state’s annual job fair; meeting prospective teachers is one of my favorite things to do.  We are fortunate that KPBSD is one of the more desired places in Alaska to teach- there were a lot of candidates waiting […]
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Parent Volunteers

By Steve Atwater | Published: April 18, 2011
For the past three months we have been interviewing candidates for our various principal openings.  One of our standard questions asks what they will do to bring parents into the school.  The responses are somewhat predictable and usually center on effective communication.  We ask this question because we know that a school with good parent […]
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KPBSD Art Alive and Well

By Steve Atwater | Published: April 8, 2011
Yesterday afternoon I spoke to the Homer Rotary and afterwards fielded questions including one that asked about the impact of No Child Left Behind.  I gave my standard answer that the Act was both good and bad.  Good in that it caused educators to become much more analytical about student performance and bad because it unreasonably assumes that […]
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Paul Banks Students Shine

By Steve Atwater | Published: April 8, 2011
Each year during the first full week of April, our schools suspend their daily routine to provide time for the state-mandated testing.  This week is of course a big deal because so much is made of how the students perform on the tests.  There is one school however, Paul Banks, that does not have any students […]
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Nikiski Community Support

By Steve Atwater | Published: March 31, 2011
On Tuesday evening I was at the Nikiski Middle/High School library to meet with staff and community members to explain our process for hiring a new principal.  I was thrilled to see the room jammed with close to 100 people.  Most in the crowd were there to support their assistant principal’s candidacy for this vacancy.  […]
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Collaboration and Pay

By Steve Atwater | Published: March 23, 2011
An on-going conversation that recently gathered steam is the issue of how best to compensate teachers.  The current method used by KPBSD (and most school districts) considers years of teaching experience and level of education as the determinant for how much a teacher is paid.  There is however,  a growing sentiment that this method is flawed since the annual raise may or may not be in […]
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Retaining 3rd Graders

By Steve Atwater | Published: March 12, 2011
This year, one of the Governor’s main education goals is to stop the social promoti0n of students from 3rd grade.  I assume that the  premise for this is the understanding  that failure to be on track at the end of this grade will likely doom a student to being behind his peers for the remainder of  his schooling.  Although there […]
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Making the most of funding

By Steve Atwater | Published: March 3, 2011
One of the pieces of legislation that is currently working its way through the state’s legislature is a bill that will fund the Governor’s Performance Scholarship Program.  If funded, the program will provide post-secondary support for students who take a prescribed number of courses while earning a good grade point average.  The goal of the […]
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Children in Poverty

By Steve Atwater | Published: February 24, 2011
At Monday’s board worksession, Senator Murkowski spent 45 minutes speaking about where things are headed with education at the federal level.  I shared that we are concerned that federal money for children in poverty is losing some of its entitlement status and is instead being divvied up through competitive grants.  I feel that this is a […]
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Communications Survey

By Steve Atwater | Published: February 14, 2011
One of our on-going challenges is to maintain good communications with the public.  In the past year we’ve made several improvements to this area. We are now seeking our stakeholders’ feedback on how we are doing. We are  participating in a new study to help school districts improve communication with parents (and others) in our school […]
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