Today's Program:
David Thrasher will talk about his whitewater rafting experience in Costa Rica.

Last Week's Program:

President, Jonathan Moore, led the Club with singing “America " and saying the Pledge of Allegiance. Invocation by Biff Averitt. Bruce Branch led the singing with a weather appropriate song, “Jingle Bells”.

John George introduced today’s program. Skip Carnine gave a presentation on Leadership and particularly how it is affecting the educational system. Skip is a retired school Superintendent from the Little Rock school system. He serves on the Board of Trustees for the Northwest Arkansas Community College.

According to Skip, leadership is a relatively general category. From research, it is one of the key components of a successful organization. Leadership tends to be one ingredient that everyone agrees on that makes an organization grow. He talked about his 40+ years of experience in the educational arena in which he has researched leadership and what makes a good leader.

In order to be a successful organization you have to first find the right people. Finding people to fill positions of leadership in schools today isn’t what it was like 30 years ago. Back then leaders from the community typically held those positions and eagerly so. Folks born just prior to or during World War II came out to staff schools for the children of the baby boom. All are over 65 now and leaving the system and we don’t have the qualified people to replace them. Positions of leadership within the school systems are getting harder to fill with qualified professionals. We need more capable people to fill these rolls, but not many are willing to serve. Some of the reasons for that are due to the stress of the position and the time required of the position.

The key piece to any school is the quality of the principal. We are in need of people willing to step into the role of principal that are qualified and willing to serve. In the southwest part of the state there has been a 63% change in principals over the last 3 years. The southeast part of the state wasn’t hit as hard because of consolidation plan they had in place.

Our young people are still not achieving at the level that we would like. The NCLB (No Child Left Behind) was passed, but it’s narrow and squeezes curriculum and teachers have to spend more time to help kid’s needing more attention with studies. That means that we have to find ways to motivate those students who don’t need the special help and want to learn more, they are bored in the classroom.

Two areas that we need highly qualified people are in the Math and Science fields. We are not producing the number of people that we need to fill positions in these two areas of study. An example is the fact that last year we only graduated one physics teacher in the whole state of Arkansas. We need to produce high quality people for our educational system, especially math and science teachers to meet our future growth. Skip says that he doesn’t believe that money is the dominant issue in the lack of people. Upon exit interview, teachers/principals were asked why they were leaving, 99% said that it’s not a money issue. Money is only a factor in the areas where money is a quality issue. Lower income areas are harder to fill, people usually want to leave those areas. Some school systems are raising the salary levels considerably in order to find people that are from those areas, that have ties to those areas, and would like to live there.

On the issue of how we interest more people in math and science and how we support them, Skip says he views our problem as our own personal fixation of communities and what’s important. Math and science are not high priorities in our area. We are an anomaly here in NWA. Growth allows us to acquire people that other areas can’t, so often we don’t understand that we need to educate more teachers to help fill positions on a state or even national level.

Announcements:

• Nita Larimore passed away last Sunday. Visitation will be Thursday 6th from 5:00 - 7:00 pm. Funeral will be Friday at 10:00. In lieu of flowers, you might want to consider donating on Nita’s behalf to the Rotary Foundation or the Wheel chair foundation.

• Wendy gave the Wheel Chair Foundation report. Our goal is 100 wheel chairs and we have currently raised 70. Contact Wendy Kumpe or Corey Davidson for more information. Remember April 24th is the trip to Costa Rica to give away the wheel chairs. They cost $75 each. You can donate in honor or memory of someone too. See Wendy Kumpe for details.

• Wendy announced the she will be taking pictures for the website of members, so if you do not have a picture or would like a new one taken, see her after the meeting.

Visiting Rotarians and Guests:

Jene’ Huffman Gilreath introduced our visiting Rotarian:
Her husband, Chris Gilreath, Downtown Fayetteville

Guests:

Hal Savage introduced Norm Lawrence
Fred Johnson introduced Gene Krasheninnikov
Kathryn Gough introduced Suzanne
Jene’ Huffman Gilreath introduced her daughters, Halle, Aubre and Zoe
Biff Averitt introduced Joe Hines

Chad’s Members in the News:

Chad wasn’t here for members in the news.

Atta Boys and Girls (makeups)
Darrell Smith 3X
David Thrasher
Kathryn Geoff
Biff Averitt
Doug Schrantz
Tom Woodruff

Upcoming Programs
3/25 Casey Croxton
4/1 Dr. Paul Batson/ Camp War Eagle

The Club closed the meeting with reciting the Four-Way test.