Friday, August 22, 2008

In The Still of The Night!

It's 3:40 am, the third night in a row that I find myself awake.

Thoughts of the upcoming Back to School Event keep me from falling back to sleep once awake. The event will come and go in a short span of time actually but the preparation and planning has been going on since last May.

The kernal idea was to have an event that caused the staff at our school district to be so enthused by a presentation that they would stand and cheer the culmination!!! Set the stage for the coming year with a show stopper! No small directive!

Now we have had motivational speakers, heart wrenching photo slideshows, and award ceremonies over the years. The past Superintendent even delivered the Back to School Address all in Spanish one year - small feat for our middle class, predominantly white school system! Still in the end, there were some teachers who would leave saying, "That was ok but I wish I could have just spent the time in my room! I have so much to do to get ready for those kids!"

So...how do you bring back a staff of hundreds and share with them the vision and direction of the whole district in a short amount of time, in a way that will spark a tense Back to School brain? In other words, how do you become more important than time spent getting the classroom ready?

Key Elements To Include

It must be:

  • fast paced
  • interactive
  • able to drive home the ultimate vision
  • relatively inexpensive
  • and leave them cheering!

Can you do that with 600 staff members? Teachers, educational assistants, secretaries, bus drivers, cooks, custodians?

The answer is "Yes"..."Maybe"? We will know by next Thursday if we have pulled it off!

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