"Critical Friend" Kevin

As I went through high school, there were many variables in the composition of my teachers' gradebooks. Some teachers had hundreds and thousands of points possible; other had just dozens of points possible. Some teachers curved their tests, and others did not. Some teachers accepted late work, and others did not. The variables were seemingly endless. Extra credit was possible in some classes, but not others. Some teachers graded work that was simply complete; others chose not to collect assignments whatsoever and simply used our test scores to compose our final class grades. Starting a new high school class was as much about understanding the "game" I had to play to earn my "A" as it was about learning the new content. Sometimes, the game may have even been more important than actually knowing the new material. When I began college, however, this changed. First, I had to know the material. Second, the game was relatively similar in each class. In short, my colle...

When I became an administrator, I never imagined that one of my most stressful responsibilities would be contributing to snow day decisions. I thought, "What could be better than occasionally giving students and teachers a day off?" As it turns out, this decision is never easy, especially when making it for a fourth consecutive day in a row! At Borgia, our president George Wingbermuehle and I make the decision together. Usually one of us calls the other when things look questionable and then we discuss. When there is twelve inches of snow on the ground, it's easy. He calls TV stations while I send an email and text to our families and staff. However, the stress comes when it is unclear how challenging the roads may be in some parts of town. On the morning of Thursday, January 9, we were sure we could have school. We had just gotten an additional inch of snow (on top of our foot from the weekend), but we thought we could have school. The city of Washington was so quick to ...

Borgia Family, October, November, and December were busy months at Borgia. So many great things happened! We won a State Championship, welcomed an ACT speaker, invented something called "The First Lap," began have Eucaristic Adoration on the first Thursday AND Friday of the month, and we sent our band to Florida. With so much going on at school, I did not take the time to write. However, in 2014, that's going to change! One of my New Year's Resolutions this year is to write in this blog, once each week, to let you know the great things going on at Borgia. Along those lines, I would like to share some other New Year's resolutiuons for me and my work with Borgia in 2014: 1. Establish a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) curriculum that puts our students (interested in pursuing these fields) ahead of their peers from other schools. 2. Grow the Borgia and Beyond continuous improvement initiative to include more people contributing to big decisions for B...