Dr. Harry Alvis

  "Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other."                    - John F. Kennedy I have been in school administration for a decade now, but I have always considered myself a teacher.  Even though I haven't had a classroom during that time, I feel as though my job is still to teach.  The only difference is I am teaching adults instead of children.  Being in a room with people who have the same vision and different perspectives while exchanging thoughts and ideas is the most enjoyable part of the job.   There comes a point in every superintendent's life where you realize something unsettling:  you spend a lot of time talking about classrooms without actually being in one. This isn't by design, it just happens.  One day you are swimming in lesson plans and lunch duty, and the next you are knee deep in budgets, board reports, and a meeting about why the AC unit in the library has ...

  "Don't tell my replacement where the good pens are until they've earned it."     - A Retiring Teacher I Used to Work With Many Years Ago Every spring, as the anxiety over state testing (and the pollen count) rises, something else begins to happen in Arkansas public schools.  Hiring season. As a Superintendent, I've learned to recognize the signs.  Principals start walking a little faster.  District administration develop a thousand-yard stare.  Retiring teachers start acting like they have found the fountain of youth, and somewhere, a spreadsheet is opened that will not be closed again until July (at least we hope it is closed by then).   Welcome to staff turnover season. The Positives:  Fresh Ideas and Fresh Energy A lot of people see turnover as a negative, but there is good news.  Hiring season is an opportunity.   Every new teacher, bus driver, paraprofessional, cafeteria worker, etc. brings fresh energy into our building...

  "Reality is the leading cause of stress for those that are in touch with it."     - Jane Wagner Unplanned Innovation    If you have worked in public education in Arkansas for more than 15 minutes, you have probably noticed that we don't PLAN innovation nearly as often as we stumble into it while trying to survive something else. Inclement weather?  Innovation. Pandemic?  Innovation (whether we liked or agreed with it or not). System altering legislation rammed through in record time?  Innovation. Internet goes down during state testing?  Not innovation...but definitely character revealing.   The title of this post is often attributed to Winston Churchill, "Never let a good crisis go to waste".  While he was not thinking about bus routes, school finance, or school scheduling when he made the statement, it is a little too 'on the nose' for Arkansas public schools.     If we are being honest, some of our best ideas did...