Focus on TUSD - October 2007

Superintendent's Column
"Focus," the name of this periodical, is also an important tool that helps us to meet and surmount today's educational challenges at a time when many needs and distractions vie for everyone's attention and time. The key is knowing what to focus upon.

These essential focus areas are student achievement, each student's annual progress, and maximizing each student's personal growth in areas such as internal motivation, responsibility, punctuality, honesty, teamwork, and intercultural proficiency. These strategies have been created over the years: report cards, homework, quizzes, projects, classroom discussion, field trips, as well as the method Arlo Guthrie jokingly refers to in the preface to his song, "Inch By Inch," "the old-fashioned way," a.k.a., repetition. Recently, we have added computers and the Internet, pacing calendars, benchmarks, AIMS tests, the parent access page, interactive white boards, and internships--and more.

As we begin the second quarter of this school year, we need to focus on student achievement and students' personal growth by doing what professional educators and parents have always done--integrating the best of the old and new strategies.

The final topic on which to focus is what the professional educator always brings to the table: a sense of mission; a true caring for students and their futures and a knowledge that the new three R's are Rigor, Relevance and Relationships.

--Roger F. Pfeuffer
Superintendent