Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Counselor's Desk

by Donald Crane

For one week before school began this fall, a group from Prescott High School had the unique experience of attending the Arkansas Leadership Academy at Fairfield Bay. The group consisted of Tom Morrison, Joyce Gibson, Gina Lockwood, Dorothy Smith, Micki Johnston and me.

When I say it was a "unique" expereience, I mean it in every sense of the word.

Now, I have been in this "education business" many years and have grown weary of workshops and conferences. For too many years, I have polished folding metal chairs with my backside and doled away endless notepads in sheer boredom while listening to state-appointed and self-appointed experts expound the mistakes and corrections to the educational process.

The Leadership Acadmey was an exception. Gone were the slick, metal chairs. Each school team member had his own padded, adjustable armchair. There were around 150 educators in attendance. Upon arrival at the conference center in Fairfield Bay, each team member was given a private room.

Following the opening session the first day, we were treated to a meal which ranked with the best I've eaten. My steak was a full one-inch thick, but not quite cooked to my specifications. That problem was solved by swaping with Tom Morrison. He'll eat anything!

From Sunday through Friday, every meal was sumptuous -- especially breakfast. Between meals, we even had sumptuous snacks. What can I say? Truly, the way to a person's heart is throug his stomach. Between meals, we worked hard. We began early and stayed late. Some meetings lasted until 9 p.m., but we were hardly aware of it. There was enough fun involved to dispell the boredom. The academy was first class all the way.

The Arkansas Academy for Leadership Training and School-Based Management was established by the Arkansas Legislature in Act 236 of 1991 to provide a variety of training programs and opportunities to develop the knowledge base and leadership skills of principals, teachers, superintendents, to her administrators, and school board members. It is a statewide coalition of universities, professional associations, businesses, corporations, educational cooperatives, and the Arkansas Department of Education. The academy seeks creative and innovative approaches to develop human resources.

The academy operates on the following core beliefs: (1) People support what they help create, (2) Local people solve local problems best, and (3) changes take place faster in groups. Each leadership team was an individual group, and each group was assigned a coach-facilitator.

Some of the teams had facilitators who hovered over them like a hen hatching eggs. Our team had an excellent leader. His name was David Watts, and he worked for the Department of Education.

The academy stressed leadership roles. All of our educational titles were checked at the door and we became "equals," so each member of the team could assume various leadership positions.

David would get us started in the right direction and then leave us with it. He would check back occasionally to see how we were doing, and if we began to stray off the prescribed path, he would call a halt and set us straight. We liked that. It made us feel that he had confidence in us.

Over the week, our team focused on goals for our school and how we would meet them. Group sessions utilized team planning, skill building, and decision making. Each session culminated with exhbitions in which each team presented its strategic thinking plan. Much of this was done in a humorous fashion, which made it enjoybale for all.

The emphasis was always directed toward teamwork. In the course of one of our discussions, the subject of faculty unity arose. We agreed that our faculty should work as a team. In most cases, teams are uniform -- that is, they have a uniform. The idea of school uniforms is one which has been talked about lately on the national level. Well, we thought that some sort of uniform which would identify us as the PHS faculty would be appropriate. That was the birth of our "faculty shirt." Some of the other schools have even latched on to that idea.

This week of November 18-22 is American Education Week. Please note the photo which accompanies this article. You will see your high school faculty wearing their shirts, smiling and wishing you "happy education!"

Our leadership team has been and will be meeting with various civic groups to give more details on the academy. You will probably be hearing more from this group in the future. Prescott Schools has a staff which is willing to work with and unite the school and community. This is just one of the goals of the Arkansas Leadership Academy.