Giving Credit Where It's Due: Leadership 101 (continued)

Recent reasons for kudos and accolades in the news for educators in Utah school districts follow the mantra that, in spite of our Legislator's (and local school Bored's) lip-service (yet continued obvious lack of support), those in the trenches continue to do a superlative job in academically preparing Utah's students for the rigors of post-secondary education. We continually OUTSTRIP expectations in preparing our students for the 'real world'...that with the lowest funding, support and obvious dislike/disregard/outright hatred from those who could help students achieve even more: our Utah Legislature.

Witness: http://tinyurl.com/4yclxvq&gt. Not to be TOO critical of the congratulations and accolades being so freely and lavishly heaped on this well-written PRESS RELEASE by a (well paid) minion of Superintendent Dr. David Doty, please read further, between the lines: WHO are the recipients of the praise? "Canyons Superintendent David Doty said the honor validates the vision and hard work of Canyons’ staff, including Chief Academic Officer Dr. Ginger Rhode, Director of Evidence-Based Learning (Secondary) Dr. Hollie Pettersson, dedicated principals and teachers."

Read the whole self-aggrandizing release here: tinyurl.com/4yclxvq&gt&gt.

Point being, most of our gifted and dedicated teachers who directly AFFECT those scores, and the resultant reason for celebration, were never DIRECTLY celebrated, by name or otherwise...just those in the 'press-release', presumably to make Canyons School district look wonderfully progressive. Even more telling, they feel slighted in that many of them do not KNOW 'Chief Academic Officer' Dr. Ginger Rhode, or 'Director of Evidence-Based Learning (Secondary)' Dr. Hollie Petterson, or have little more than passing contact with either in their continued pursuit of what they've always done best...for years-and-years in their classrooms, where none of these academic 'giants' have ever visited!!

Now, to put things into FINAL perspective, dig a little deeper: <http://tinyurl.com/868p7gq>...it seems Davis School District is WELL ahead of the curve, even more so than Canyons by at least a year, and didn't have the advantage of shedding their least-likely-to-succeed population from the other side of the tracks, then trumpeting their fledgling school district is suddenly light-years ahead of the academic competition. And they gave credit where it was MOST due...

They acknowledged their gifted AP TEACHERS are the reason(s) for their continued success...

Leadership comes in many forms, but one of the most obvious is when you can finally say, "Thank you!" to those who deserve it the most...and they're NOT the highly-paid administrators with the impressive titles in the Puzzle Palace...they're too busy with day-to-day business in the trenches.