You won't see this on the official school board site yet, but I found an article in today's Daily News Record announcing that Shenandoah County has hired Bryant Keith Rowland as our new public school superintendent. They printed what the shool board gave them. I did a little googling and found some more news. First of all, like many true southern gentlemen, he uses his middle name, so a google for "Bryant Keith Rowland" or "Bryant Rowland" comes up empty.
He's currently Director of Elementary Education & Directory of Instructional Technology at Radford City (VA) Public Schools. Here's a link to his official bio page with mugshot. So that tells us, maybe that he has a fondness for instruction among the younger kids, and he cares about technology. That's evidenced by:
One of his programs won an award from Virginia Tech in 2003. "Book Buddies provides individualized reading instruction to selected first graders who failed to reach the PALS Benchmark as determined by the fall PALS test. The program supervisor trains interns from Radford University to tutor with these at-risk students to meet the goals of their Individualized Educational Plans. Weekly communication and conferencing between parents, tutors, classroom teachers, and the program supervisor is key to the success of the program." Ah, so he also knows how to call upon the resources of local higher education. Great!
Way back in 1997, when most of today's advocates for technology in education couldn't spell "www" Rowland was principal of an elementary school in Riner, in Montgomery County (south of Blacksburg). A teacher got the idea to provide a group of students with a PC connected to the internet, and an identical PC to bring home to get the whole family wired. (This was before laptops were common and cheap). So they got a fat grant from the US Dept. of Education and got 24 students a pair of up-to-the-minute PC's. The whole story is fascinating, so read it all.
Earlier this year he was involved in a plan within Radford schools to expand their recruitment of teachers to be more culturally diverse. That could be great here, where "diversity" means having some teachers who weren't born and raised in Shenandoah County. We have a significant and almost invisible Latino community that should see some more Latino role models within the school system. If Rowland can start that here without compromising standards, that would be great for everyone.
But this comment in another article makes me happiest. He doesn't seem to be a glory hound. He seems to abide the leadership idea that one does better when one gives credit to one's colleagues. "I'm fortunate to have smart and talented people who work for me. I don't have to tell them what needs to be done. Those kind of people are why we're successful." He said that about his Radford colleagues in an article in the Roanoke Times in 2004.
That's what I found, and it's encouraging. If you've got more, or have a different view, please comment below.
No comments:
Post a Comment