Speaker Series at Chelwood
Dr. Brad Allison, the Albuquerque Public School's superintendent, was the featured speaker on January 13th. It was part of our series "Visions Of The 21st Century: How I and My Child Fit In." This series began in October with Cogresswoman Heather Wilson speaking about the 21st Century from a national perspective. In December, Lt. Governor Walter Bradley talked about where New Mexico will be in the 21st Century. It has been a great series and will continue to provide some important insight for our parents.
Congresswoman Heather Wilson spoke about some of the initiatives that are happening at the national level. She talked about money for additional teachers, funding for national programs, how Sandia Labs will play a role in the future of our country, and about NASA and the defense programs. She really wants to see more retired military personel being utilized as classroom teachers and substitutes. She feels they could be a great addition to our school system. Mrs. Wilson was a great speaker and we really appreciated that she took the time out of her schedule to be at our school.
Former Lt. Governor Walter Bradley had a good perspective to talk about education and where we are going at the state level. He is in favor of additional testing of students and would like to see vouchers at some level. He also feels the business and private sector need to play an important role in the education of our children. He is an enjoyable speaker to listen to and the audience was happy to have him as a speaker. The performances by the Chelwood Band and Chorus, along with a visit from Santa, made it a very entertaining evening.
Dr. Allison spoke about his initiative titled "Performance Counts!" The program has the goals of improving the test scores of APS students to the point where every student scores above the 40%, making sure every student is at grade level in reading, and to reduce the drop out rate. Dr. Allison spoke for about 30 minutes and then opened up the floor for questions from the audience. This was scheduled for 30 minutes, but the audience was so involved that it lasted for 45 and then had to be cut off due to a shartage in time.
Several Albuquerque Business leaders came to speak at the February 3rd speaker forum. These guests included an official from Sandia Labs, the CEO of a local engineering firm, the Human Resources Manager for Wells Fargo Bank, a Manager from MCI, and a local surgeon. They talked about what businesses will be looking for in the 21st Century and the need for Character Counts Education in the public schools. All of the leaders agreed that the business sector needs to get more involved in the school system and would like to see incentives for employees to volunteer at their schools. They also talked about how important responsibility, trustworthiness, respect, fairness, caring, and citizenship are in the business world. They said that it is often easy to find qualified people, but the character traits are not there. We need to begin this in the elementary schools and encourage parents to teach this to their children. It really could make the difference someday as to whether they get a good job or not.
We were very pleased to have these wonderful speakers and appreciate that they took his time to be part of our series. We also would like to thank the UNM Cancer Research Treatment Center for their sponsorship and support of this wonderful series.
Speaker Series Responses from March 9
If you did not make it to the Speaker Series last Thursday, you really missed out on an excellent program. We had the Vice President of the Hispano Chamber of Commerce as the keynote speaker, and then went into the gym for small group interaction with teachers and more than 15 business owners. Close to 1/3 of the Chelwood parents were in attendance for the program. The emphasis of the evening was how the Character Counts traits we are working on in the elementary schools are important to the students as the enter the work force in the future. Several of the businesses are saying that they can find people with the skills they need to work, but these employees lack the traits of being responsible, trustworthy, arriving on time, etc. The key point of the evening was that the habits the students develop in elementary school will become life long habits. We need to begin developing positive characteristics at an early age, meaning the elementary school years. The attitude of the parents makes a big difference in this development. A parent who says “It is ok to be late or miss a day, it is only elementary school” is setting their child up for a negative attitude toward work. We must be careful as parents to be good role models for these children as they grow up.
The Hispano Chamber was so impressed with this concept and the format of the Speaker Series that they are going to take this same program to 3 other elementary schools before the school year ends. They hope to expand it into many more schools next year. The concept of the schools and businesses joining together on this important issue has them excited. The business leaders who were here for our meeting were also impressed with the quality of discussions that occurred in the small groups and how important of a topic this is to take to the community.
The following are some responses from the people who attended the series and placed comments on the evaluation forms. The responses were all very positive and we wanted to share a few with you.
“I never realized how valuable good communication skills are.”
“What a great impact we can have on our children’s future now.”
“I really learned how important it is to be a good role model to my children.”
“I learned that I can do more with my kids.”
“I never realized how important it is for me to be on time and to show that to my kids.”
“I found out that I really need to be a team player in my child’s education.”
“I wish this program was available for all the middle school and high school students to attend.”
“I would like to see the students at each school have the opportunity to hear this program.”
If you were not able to attend the program, you really missed a good one. We will be working to provide an opportunity to do this again next year. We feel that this is an important message to get out to parents, so plan now to be a part of it next year.
Heather Wilson and a student.
Below is a picture of Former Lt. Governor Bradley.
Former APS superintendant in our school cafeteria.
The Chelwood Band was a real crowd pleaser
during the December meeting..
The Chorus performed holiday favorites.
Business leaders spoke at the Feb. 3 Meeting
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