A New Chapter

This is Matt writing... I don't write often but Julie said that I had to do this one. This month we have started a number of new things in our life. I will see if I can update you on everything.

Over the past two years I have been working on my administration license at Indiana State University. I have taken a couple classes each semester and some during the summer and this fall I will be doing my internship and graduate with my Masters of Education in Administration and Supervision. My end goal is to be a high school principal.

This last school year I have worn many hats (probably too many). I was the head coach for the Boys and Girls Cross Country team, the senior class sponsor (which did include a trip to Florida), a band director (this year we only had 20 some Pep Band games), Track coach, and then working with technology at the school including web page development. Despite all of that going on I also got involved in school reform. We are looking at changing our classroom delivery and establishing our school as a 21st century school. That included a lot of work and will continue to include a lot of work. In the process of looking at school improvement we decided we needed a new position and that is where we are today.

We found that we were behind many other schools in our computers, our use of technology, and our infrastructure. We decided we needed someone to be in charge of all that stuff. I decided to apply and was accepted. So, I am going to be our Director of Instructional Technology. I wouldn't take the position though if it weren't for the instructional part. I still am a teacher and probably always will be. This will give me the opportunity to train students and teachers in using technology. I am also planning on starting what we will call the C.A.T Crew. This will be a computer and technology group of students that will help with upgrades and care of the computers. I saw this done at another school and it was absolutely impressive how well the students helped out and made it move forward. I will also be in charge of our technology teams and administering everything concerning technology in the corporation. The nice thing is that I will get paid during my intership, but this will be a full time job (including summers). With this I am passing the torch of my band position to someone else. We are in the process of searching for that.

Thursday May 14 was my "last" concert. Although I will not be the director I am sure that I will still have some participation in the concerts. But it was a good concert. We played some pieces from the past 4 years as an encore concert. The students did great. It was a packed concerts with a lot of "lip-busters" for the wind players. It was a great way to "go out." I had a student ask me the other day how it is that I am giving up all that "talent" to move on and do something else. I must say that I have never really felt that my talent was in music but rather in teaching and training. But I like music and have worked hard to get where I am today in music. But now I will have the opportunity to impact not only my 20-some band students but hopefully the whole school. This band program has come along way from where it was and now the School Board expects that the same thing will happen with the school corporation and its technology. So, this is a really long post, and a lot of news in there, but it is a really big change here. Here is a short video of some of the highlights from the concert. Look from more to come either here or on youtube (or both).