The Facebook Purge

Tonight, I began what I think will become an annual tradition - The Facebook Purge. I recently read an online journal about social networking in education. This seems to be a hot topic in educational circles over the last couple of months. I talked about this a little a couple of weeks ago in this blog. Since the beginning of school I have received numerous invitations to seminars or webinars that were devoted to the handling of issues surrounding social networking. A few months back there was even front page article in The Tennessean about the issue of social networking and it's role in education. There are very few school systems that have written policies on how to deal with the phenomena of Facebook, Twitter, My Space, Ning, or the dozens of other sites that have exploded in the last two years.
As someone who considers myself somewhat progressive when it comes to technology, I have followed a lot of these things closely. Something happened at the dinner table yesterday that made me think about all the things I have read. My father (who is not very tech savvy) informed me that one of his friends had befriended me on Facebook. I did not even realize that I was friends with this man. I quickly pulled out my iPhone and launched my Facebook app to see that I was indeed friends with this gentleman.
This got me to thinking - how many people am I friends with that I do not even know? A quick look at my Facebook profile says that I have 764 friends. My 28 blog readers know that there is NO WAY in Hades that I have 764 friends! I could not even break triple digits on my very scientific poll to determine the number of readers of this blog! Being in a profession where I have literally worked with hundreds of students in both school and church settings, I frequently get friend request where I do not always know who is asking me to be my friend. Working in an elementary school, I also get friend request from parents (which I like), and I do not always recognize the names. It really gets tricky when new parents who have not even started at the school shoot me a friend request. Because of that, I seldom say no to any adult request. I have a standing policy that I do not accept friend request from current students and this could be it's own blog post for another time, because I have been besieged by them recently..by students ranging anywhere from the 2nd-5th grades.
So tonight, I (along with some help from my son, who is VERY intrigued with the whole Facebook thing) sat down and began the "purging" process. When I began I had over 760 "friends". Mind you that almost all of these are people who I know (with the exception of 3), but I have not talked to in a long time, many were former students, who for some reason, wanted to be friends with a former teacher. There were quit a few who were in youth groups that I worked with years ago. I decided to purge them! If I haven't talked with them in months (or YEARS) I cut them lose! I feel pretty confident that my former students are NOT reading the Bobcat Blog, and probably will not even notice that I am gone! If by chance, I accidentally deleted you, and you actually notice, I apologize for hurting your feelings! If you would like to once again be "friends", shoot me a request!
For those of you who have never experienced the freedom of the purge, let me encourage you to try it some time...begin a new tradition with me!

Too Good Not to Share

When I get bored, I tend to write. I find myself sitting in a hospital on a Friday night with nothing but time on my hands, so I figured I would update my blog. Katrina had surgery today and I am doing my husbandly duty of sitting here with her. My staff (actually, Mrs. Rhonda) has given me stern instructions on taking care of Katrina, and is doubting my ability to adequately take care of my wife. Although I am very close to the RAVE theater and would love to go see the Blind Side tonight, I am determined to prove her wrong....so here I sit typing!
Let me preface this post by saying that I regularly read several different blogs, which kind of makes me a blog geek. One of the organizations that I am a member of is called ESHA - which stands for Elementary School Heads Association. They do a very good job of sending data and articles that pertain to independent schools and in particular, leadership at independent schools. This article was sent to me today and I thought it was too good not to share. I have talked several times about the dangers of "child centered parenting" and the results of it. This article hits on some of those things. Check this for a good read, and tell me what your thoughts are.

Reba!!!! Really???

I realize I am opening myself up on this one. If you are one of my 28 normal readers, you will know that this is not unusual. I tend to be pretty authentic, sometimes to a fault! There are probably some windows into my life that I should just leave closed, but I also believe you have to be able to laugh at yourself, something many can not do! I blogged a few months ago about my childhood affection of Michael Jackson. This post may strike you as strange since it has more of a country flavor to it. I can almost guarantee that I know the first two people that will mention this post to me! As a teen, I listened to mostly country music, but also liked pop, rock and heavy metal as well.
As I lay here watching the CMA Awards, (which are my favorite by the way), I have just been reminded of a pretty funny moment in my past.
For some reason that is now beyond comprehension, I used to have an unhealthy crush on Reba McEntire. By unhealthy, I mean that I was infatuated with her. It didn't matter that she was at least 20 years older than me! It really is strange. Looking back I do not know what caused me to be so impressed with her.
I actually had the opportunity to go to the CMA's when I was about 15 years old. A family friend scored some tickets that where literally the last row of the balcony, but it didn't matter. We were there and we were inside...unlike the hundreds of people who had to sit outside. We were so far away that we actually had to watch the screens because we could not see the music stars faces from where we were sitting. This was about the time that Reba had her smash hit Fancy. This was a very dark song that was incredibly popular. I loved it, as any teen would. At the time it was controversial, and kids love that kind of stuff.
You will be glad to know that, for the special occasion, I wore my favorite Reba t-shirt that I paid a ridiculous amount of money for at one of her concerts. It was a black t-shirt that had a huge picture of Reba on it with all of our tour stops listed on the back in some turquoise blue writing....very manly! Along with my shirt I also sported my ripped blue jeans, big (I MEAN REALLY BIG) belt buckle, and of course, the same cowboy boots that recently made an appearance at BBS for Western Day. Since I am have now lost all dignity...I will also admit that I had a little mullet action going on as well - man was I cool!
I had several of Reba's tapes, and even purchased a CD of hers back when CDs came in those long rectangular boxes that were 3 times the size of the actual CD and cost about $29. They were virtually impossible to open. Can I get a shout out if you remember those? Now that I have taken a stroll down memory lane...its time to go to bed!

Head of School - A Family Affair

I really believe that it is hard to separate my family and Brainerd Baptist School. We have become ingrained into this great institution. My family is usually involved in some sort of BBS or BBC activity 6 days/nights a week and in many cases, all 7 days!
As some of you may know, I actually began my career at BBS back in 1996. I was a young newlywed preparing to become a middle school teacher and coach. I had full intentions of returning home to middle TN and coaching in the middle school that I went too (it was still a junior high back in the 80's when I was there). As we all have experienced, life usually charts a different course than we do for ourselves. Chattanooga has become home to us. All three of our children were born in Chattanooga, two of them while I was a young teacher here at BBS ( I was here until 2001), and Abigail came along during my tenure at David Brainerd. Something I learned early in the first couple of years in school administration is that it is a family affair. You really do not just hire a Head of School, you hire his family! When you spend as much time at school as we do, it becomes impossible to separate the two. The bond between our family and this school is even more significant because this is the only school my children have ever known. In their eyes, it was their school before it was mine. They were too young to remember that I actually taught at BBS before they began going to school there. Andrew and Aaron had been students at BBS for two years before Daddy came back to work at BBS in 2005. Fortunately for me, my children still LOVE this place and do not like to leave no matter how many hours they have been here. They never want to leave. Katrina and I both have taken it personal when they get upset because we are taking them home instead of letting them stay in ASC! Andrew and Aaron also think it's cool to walk through the building turning out the lights and locking the doors. (This should be a different post, this building will scare the junk out of you at night, so I enjoy their company!)
Since it is a family affair, I thought I would share our most recent family pictures with you. One of our school parents does a great job taking pictures and recently took our family photos. This was the first time we have ever had pictures done like this. We normally go to Wal-Mart or JC Penny and have pictures done there in the the studio. Pleasant came to our house and took some pictures of all of us - including Bruce and Tiny, our dachshunds. My children were also excited to get their picture made sitting in the famous chair! If you would like to see them, click here and scroll down!

PSO Meeting Recap

I struggle with a post like this. The mean spirit in me says, "do not provide details of a meeting to parents who were not there". The nice guy in me then says, "write a post so the parents who were not able to make the meeting can know what is going on with our PSO and Brainerd Baptist School." I am torn. I feel like Tom in the Tom and Jerry cartoon. I loved this show when I was a child, and in fact, I still watch it with my children when it comes on. Have you ever seen where there is the good Jerry and the bad Tom? When this happens, a little red devil cat appears on one side of Tom's head giving him all sorts of bad ideas and then there is the little Angelic Jerry Mouse on the other side of his head giving him good advice. That is what is happening to me right now! Those of you who know me well know that the ornery usually wins out over the nice guy. Some of you were thinking I was the little angelic Jerry aren't you? That being said, I do understand that circumstances sometimes prevent all parents from being able to attend our PSO meetings. I was excited to see a great turn out for our first meeting of the year. Our PSO officers are working hard to get more parents involved at BBS and the fruits of their labor are starting to show. Below is a quick synopsis of our meeting. I am sure the official minutes have far fewer grammatical errors in them!

• Staci Fain, PSO president, began the meeting by giving a recap of the recent events (Gift Wrap, Doughnuts for Dads & Fall Festival) and also talked about how much money these events raised for our school. Over $21,000 was raised from our Gift Wrap and over $8,500 was raised on the Fall Festival. After going over these items Staci turned the meeting over to me.

• I talked with our parents about what the school was planning on using the money that is raised this year for. There are 3 main areas that we are looking to use raise monies for this year.
  1. We want to finish our remodel of the 4th/5th grade hallway. This has been started, but not completed. We have a couple of rooms left that need painted and new lights and ceilings.
  2. We plan on replacing our schools computer lab this summer with a mobile computer lab. Our lab will become mobile next year. There is also a plan to purchase new laptops for each of our teachers at Brainerd Baptist School as well.
  3. Our playground is in need of refurbishing. We are going to be forming a parent committee to lead in the process of coming up with ideas and quotes for this job. This will be a major ordeal and because of cost, may have to be spread out over 2 years.
• I talked about our Annual Fund drive and how it would be changing this year. We are going to be more aggressive in our efforts to up the level of participation, especially among our grandparents. Our Annual Fund generated just under $30,000 this past year, and why that is significant improvement over the previous years, it is still a FAR cry from where it should be. Other schools in the Chattanooga area with tuition that is very similar to ours are generating $75,000 to $100,000 a year in their campaigns, and in many cases, these schools have a smaller enrollment that we do. I explained to our parents that there are over 220 families at BBS, and statistics tell us that we have close to 700 or 800 grandparents. Our level of giving has not been as high as it needs to be. We have got to get a larger number (actually, the majority) of our families participating in our annual fund. If every family that was connected to BBS were involved, the average gift would need to be less than $100. We really only have two choices, get our Annual Fund support raised to the level it needs to be at, or begin aggressively raising tuition to offset the difference in our budget and giving. You will be seeing and hearing more about this soon.
  
• Finally, we moved on to the main order of business for the evening - Classroom Placement Policy. We had a discussion about why this was an issue, what was happening in this area, and what was done at other schools. Names were taken and the PSO will be forming a Parent Advisory Council to help come up with new policy that we will follow in regards to class placement.
  

After this, the meeting was dismissed. Our next meeting will be in January and we will be educating our parents on how to read our new test scores. We hope to have an even larger crowd at this meeting. If you are not currently involved in our PSO , we would love to have you! We have a committed, but overworked collection of parents who are always looking for someone to help.

Tweeting from BBS

Well, I am embracing this technology thing 100% I recently returned from the annual SAIS meeting in Atlanta. While there I went to a breakout session entitled "Social Networks and the Independent School." It was very interesting session in which the presenter discussed Facebook, Twitter, Ning, My Space, Blogs and other social networks. After this session I decided that I would begin "tweeting" on a school account. I have had my own Twitter account for over about a year now. I am going to try and make these tweets more school related. I am sucker for good research articles, and I will share some of them with you via the Twitter posts. If you are interested in following these feeds, go to Twitter.com and sign up. To make it easier to find, you may search "BrainerdBobcat". I'm gonna give something away to the 50th follower of the page!

Fall Festival Shananigans....

NOTE: We can not say for sure that no animals were harmed in the taking of this picture!

I thought I would take a few minutes and let my large contingent of blog readers know a few things. Once I enlighten you, I hope you can readily see that I am doomed to lose these contests before they ever begin! I am beginning to see that the outcome of these things is about as crooked as a dog's hind leg!
The contest between teachers has a long history at BBS. Each year various teachers graciously agree to be part of some sort of contest where the winner (or loser) usually ends up kissing a pig, goat, or some other animal, gets a pie slammed into their face, or ends up in a dunk tank in the cool fall weather. All of these things are so appealing that we usually have to draw names because so many teachers want to participate (NOT).
This year's contest brought a new twist. Instead of 3 contestants, there would only be 2, and instead of pie in the face or kissing a pig, we were told that the winner/loser would be kissing an "old goat".
The contest had to be reeled in from it's heights a couple of years ago. During my 2nd year back at BBS, Senor Robertson and I were in the contest and things started getting out of hand. That continued on for a couple of years as the contestants changed. Historically, this contest typically raised a couple of hundred of dollars and it got to where it raised over $1,200. We were doing all sorts of stuff like making buttons, t-shirts, selling pizza at lunch, candy at recess, making short movies to show in chapel, and even producing songs to sing in class (Although any song writer would be offended that we are calling Senor Robertson's attempt at singing song writing!). In the process, feelings were also hurt. Coach and I personally found out that some of our female staff did not handle the heat of competition as well as we did!
We decided to take a low key approach to the contest this year. We did not even start the contest till the week of Fall Break. In years past we began on Oct. 1st. Coach Ledbetter was clearly losing (or winning, depending on however you look at the contest) this year. He had probably 4 times the amount of money in his jar than I had in mine. The kids wanted to see their beloved coach kiss the goat, and I readily agreed with them. This changed late Friday morning when Coach Ledbetter had a "mystery donor" write a check and place it in my jar. I am at a loss of words to describe the motivation of this donor. It is almost as if she had a deep connection to him and a strong desire to see him succeed. I think I could best describe it by comparing it to a parent cheering for their child in an athletic contest.
As it turns out, a donation was also made to Coach Ledbetter's jar ensuring that both he and I would be kissing the goat. A great time was had by all, and as those of you that were there can testify, the goat almost head butted coach when he went in for his smooch. This proves it....I am more attractive to goats than Coach...I guess I should be proud!