Sunday, September 1, 2024

Once Again, The School Year Begins - Thank You Milton Staff Members!

 It is here already – Labor Day Weekend 2024. While our Rising Red Hawk students do not begin classes until the day after the holiday, for the past week our school buildings have been abuzz with staff members preparing for that day.

I have always respected and valued our school staff members, but this past school year ramped up my respect several notches. I was privileged to serve as an AVID tutor at the Middle School. This involved working with small groups of 7th and 8th grade Red Hawks for four hours each week. This responsibility so opened my eyes to the challenges faced by many students and, thus, our school staff members.

I applaud each one of you whatever your position and responsibilities. You are the puzzle pieces that combine to create a complete picture. Working collaboratively, you create a synergy – a situation where the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. No small task by any means.

Helice Bridges is credited with saying, “I am not here to make a living. I am here to make a difference.” This is so true of the teachers, staff members, and administrators of our phenomenal school district. Truly, you live the mission – Opportunity, Achievement, Community.

Please do not ever sell yourselves short. You are providing Milton kids – our kids – a positive imprinting that will last for life. Your voice, your lessons, your treatment of them will condition how they look upon themselves and the world.

Thank you for your dedication, effort, expertise, and sacrifice of personal time to make things happen for “our” kids.

 After all – Kids Matter

#WAM

 

Monday, March 4, 2024

A Story That Needs To Be Heard Often

Last week, one of the heartbeats of our community – our phenomenal school system - marked the close of another grading period. This meant the end of the 2nd Trimester for Middle and High Schoolers and more like the end of the third quarter for Northside, East, West, Consolidated, and Harmony. As part of this march of time, our elementaries and Northside hosted parent/staff conferences.

My personal belief is that life is about connections and establishing relationships.  Conferences provide a great opportunity for parents and guardians to connect with and become acquainted with many of the significant adults in their children’s lives. These are adults who may very well spend more waking hours with “our” children than do parents.  

I understand that conferences take extra time for parents and require planning ahead and working them into already busy, complicated family schedules, but what an opportunity to gain insight into a huge part of our children’s lives.

Another very strong personal belief I have is that our teachers and other professional educators pour their hearts and souls into their calling. The result of this dedication is that they provide Opportunity, leading to Achievement, resulting in Community. They strongly contribute to a better Milton for all of us.

I cannot thank and affirm teachers and other staff members enough for the time, preparation, and absolute caring they invest in this process and “our” kids. Conference week, while great, also has a huge impact on the lives and families of our teachers. Their schedules, their routines, their other obligations are totally disrupted in their efforts to make conferences work for parents and families.

A huge thank-you to our teachers, administrators, custodians, and other staff members for your dedication to and investment in our families and, thus, our community.

 

After all – Kids Matter!

#WEAREMIlton

Monday, August 28, 2023

Hey, Milton Educators

 I know you have already been heavily involved in the ramp-up to the new school year. While the first day for students is not until tomorrow, I know that classroom readiness, lesson materials, communication with families, in-services, required updates such as blood borne pathogens and the like have all consumed much of your time for a couple of weeks. In addition to teachers, this includes all staff members – custodians, coaches, administrators, office staff, aides, tutors, buildings and grounds staff, and the host of other individuals who collaborate as a team to present outstanding educational opportunities for our Rising Red Hawks. I and many, many other Milton citizens are so grateful for your dedication and efforts.

There are some who would say that this is “just” your job so “get on with it”. I agree that it is your job but I also believe, that it is truly your calling and I have seen and repeatedly experienced the dedication, the love, the passion, your very essence that you pour into “our” kids. Most of us cannot begin to fathom the time, the energy, the knowledge, and the true constant caring that your career demands and which you consistently deliver.  I and many, many others applaud and thank you.

On reflection, during the school year, “our kids” likely spend more waking time with you than they do with we parents and family members. You are such a positive influence for good. Please do not ever undersell or denigrate yourselves.

As stated by Mitch Albom in his great book, The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto, “A teacher’s shadow can hover for life”.  

School District of Milton Staffers – THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR CASTING THOSE POSITIVE SHADOWS RATHER THAN LIVING IN SHADOWS. YOU ARE AWESOME AND WE SO APPRECIATE ALL THAT YOU DO. HAVE A GREAT YEAR PRESENTING THOSE OPPORTUNITIES THAT LEAD TO ACHIEVEMENT THAT, IN TURN, LEAD TO COMMUNITY.

 

After all – Kids Matter!

#WEAREMILTON

 

 

Thursday, August 26, 2021

A Shout Out to Milton Heroes

This post is a shout out to employees of the School District of Milton at the start of the 20/21 school year. Whatever your job title - teacher, administrator, aide, custodian, coach, food service worker, grounds keeper, social worker, grounds keeper – I consider you a professional educator. Day after day you positively influence our kids by pouring your skills, your knowledge, your caring into them. In my book, you are heroes. On reflection, you heroes may well spend more waking time with our kids than we do ourselves. Your work is impactful for our kids, our families, our community, and the world.

This poem crossed my desk a few years ago. At the time, it struck me to the core and it still has that effect on me. In it, I see layers and layers of meaning. I thought it would serve as an affirmative nod to you and your significant contributions. Perhaps, as the poem states, “the good guy note you needed”.

BURNT OUT – By: Jim Rhodes – a teacher

So what if he can't read

Teach him how to love

Himself? Me? Others?

Lost in a stack of paper

That good guy note he needed

I needed the look in the eyes

When you finally dig it out

The eyes say for me? From you?

A warm moment in a cold day

it passes math time

you forget – they remember


 For you, from me - Thank you so much for all that you  do. Your efforts do not go unnoticed.


After all – Kids Matter and so do Milton Educators!

#cruzan4 milton#WEAREMILTON






Monday, August 31, 2020

A "Start of School" Message To School District of Milton Educators


A Message For All School District of Milton Staff Members - 


 First, let me state that I admire all of you so much.  Your skills, your knowledge, your dedication, and your caring for our kids gives them such an advantage.  Our community is so fortunate to have you. 

 While educators do experience some wonderful highs observing students respond, achieve, and grow, I also know that there are those dark times when you feel totally ineffective and impotent. This year, 2020, presents with unprecedented challenges; challenges which most are finding daunting and looming large.

 The excerpt I have attached is lengthy so you may choose not to read it.  I get that.  I have chosen it for you because, to me, it speaks eloquently to the wonder and power of people like you.  Wallace Stegner is my favorite American author and this selection is from his novel, Crossing To Safety.  It would be best read aloud but I have found that I cannot read this passage aloud without being overcome with emotion. So, for you, Aunt Emily’s porch.

 Aunt Emily’s Porch – Crossing To Safety – Wallace Stegner - Book One, Chapter 6

 Aunt Emily's porch is less porch than command post.  It is fifteen feet deep and runs across the entire front of the cottage, railed and low-eaved and sheltered even in the worst weather.  I never saw it empty of people, never saw it without a partly solved jigsaw puzzle spread out on a card table and the swing full of dominoes, rummy, and Chinese checkers, rarely saw it without someone playing bridge, either Aunt Emily teaching some children or Aunt Emily and George Barnwell engaged in their intent, competitive afternoon rubbers with Uncle Dwight and Aunt Heather.

 The bridge table is at the far end, out of the traffic, which is incessant.  Though the Ellis daughters are grown, Charity out of Smith, Comfort halfway through. There are innumerable cousins, nieces, nephews, grandnieces. grandnephews, neighbor children, and the children of visitors and guests.  Just inside the door is a circulating library of wholesome books, among which I have noted The Wind In The Willows. The Boy Scout Handbook, the entire Pooh canon, Black Beauty, Little Women, The Yearling.  There are also piles of the National Geographic.

 Aunt Emily believes in the freedom of summer.  She doesn’t much care what the children do so long as they do something, and know what they are doing.  It is idleness and randomness of mind that she cannot abide.  When the children go on a hike, she packs bird and flower guides into their knapsacks, and quizzes them on their return to see if they have learned anything.  When she accompanies them on an overnight camping trip, sleeping in her own worn pup tent, they can count on instructive fireside talks on the stars.  And on rainy days such as this she sits like a confident spider in the midst of her web until boredom drives all the children on the Point to her porch, where she reads to them or teaches them French.

What she is doing now is reading Hiawatha.  She is fond of Longfellow, whose house is a landmark on Brattle Street hardly a block from her own, and she perceives the rightness of Hiawatha in this setting of northern woods.  She reads loudly, to be heard above the rush and patter of rain.

By the shores of Gitche Gumee,

By the shining Big-Sea-Water,

Stood the wigwam of Nokomis,

Daughter of the Moon, Nokomis.

Dark behind it rose the forest,

Rose the black and gloomy pine-trees,

Rose the firs with cones upon them;

Bright before it beat the water,

Beat the clear and sunny water,

Beat the shining Big-Sea-Water.

 All the little Indians in a half circle around Aunt Emily are getting an imprinting that will last for life.  The sound of her voice reading will condition how they look upon themselves and the world.  It will become part of the loved ambiance of Barttell Pond, a glint in the chromatic wonder of childhood.  These small sensibilities will never lose the images of dark woods and bright lake.  Nature to them will always be beneficent and female.

 When he heard the owls at midnight,

Hooting, laughing in the forest,

What is that?” he cried in terror.

What is that?” he said.  “Nokomis?”

And the good Nokomis answered:

That is but the owl and owlet,

Talking in their native language,

Talking, scolding at each other.”

 Some of those children, years later, may awaken in the night from a dream of that strong voice chanting Iroquois myths in Finnish trochees, and their souls will yearn within them for the certainty and assurance and naturalness and authority of the time Aunt Emily dominated.

Please, do not ever sell yourselves short.  You are providing Milton kids – our kids – an imprinting that will last for life.  Your voice, your lessons, your treatment of them will condition how they look upon themselves and the world.  Their souls, too, will yearn within them for the certainty and assurance that you provided in your interactions with them.

 Have a great year!

After all, Kids Matter!

 Jon Cruzan 

#cruzan4milton#WEAREMILTON

 

 

 

Wednesday, July 15, 2020

A Lesson In Public Participation


Speaking in front of a group of people is often noted as one of the top fears of many. Not so for young Rising Red Hawk, Troy.  Troy will be entering 7th grade when school begins this academic year.  That makes him 12 or 13 years old.  Last Monday night, he did something that I found truly courageous and awesome – something from which many adults would shrink away. He chose to attend our local School Board meeting. Not only did he attend, but he stood up and spoke during the public participation portion held at the beginning of nearly every open School Board meeting.

In case you have never attended or watched a live stream of a School Board meeting here’s the setting. You’re going to walk into a large room with lots of chairs set up (social distancing space right now). The Board members and District Administrator will be seated behind tables facing the audience.  Even though Board members try to be as informal as possible, the setting is likely to seem very formal and even intimidating to many.  Anyone from the School District may speak at the Public Participation / Comment section near the beginning of the meeting. If you are a speaker, you will be asked to step to a lectern with a microphone, state your name, etc. and then you will be allowed 3 minutes to address the Board and the assembled public.  So, there might be as many as 30 or 40 people and you will be standing in front of them.  Additionally, you be video recorded and live-streamed, so you are likely speaking to many, many more than that. You are only allowed to speak on issues that are included on the formal agenda for that particular meeting.

The main topic of last Monday’s meeting was re-opening plans for the impending school year.  A few adults spoke, and then, as is the custom, Board President, Joe Martin, asked if there were any in the crowd who had not signed-up but wanted to address the Board. That’s when Troy’s hand went up. He approached the microphone and then he spoke eloquently and courageously from his heart.  He shared his own personal experiences and challenges from the last couple of months of last school year. He was calm, measured, and mature, showing great poise for a young man beginning 7th grade. He didn’t have an axe to grind, he wasn’t emotional, he wasn’t over dramatizing. Simply, and effectively, he was congruent and transparent, speaking from his heart about his own experiences that were pertinent to the topic at hand.  I was impressed.  I know for a fact that several others were as well.

I am heartened when I see our Milton young students, products of our schools and the values taught by our outstanding professional staff members, performing in this way, and participating in our community building processes.  

Thank you, Troy, for investing your time to share your perspective with our elected officials. This is your right and your responsibility, and you demonstrated how to do it in an exemplary manner.

If you would like to take view and hear Troy’s comments, this link will take you there: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQoXF8Nn2wnlQb6jpc8ZZqQ

After all, Kids Matter

#cruzan4milton#WEAREMILTON


Tuesday, April 28, 2020

Inch By Inch




Do you ever experience a reflective mood? A state in which your mind floods with thoughts, ideas, and memories, of all those vicissitudes of which our lives are composed? Today is a reflective day for me and I feel compelled to share those reflections with my readers.

The subject of my reflection is a long-term friend & colleague. A man whom I admire and from whom I have learned a great deal.  Indeed, my life is richer because I have known and had the opportunity to work with him in a variety of capacities over the years.  As I sit here letting my mind do its thing, I realize that this span of time is now more than 50 years. I used to think that those sharing friendships that long had to be quite old, but my perspective has shifted a bit on that particular issue.

This friend, let’s call him Tom, was born and raised in Milton. He grew up on a farm a bit to the north east of town. He was blessed to have several siblings and the undeniable advantage of being surrounded by a loving family steeped in strong values of hard work, responsibility, accomplishment, and love. He learned early-on that life was not centered on himself but on the greater community.  He absorbed that lesson well and let it guide the way he lived.  Tom embodies these words of Helice Bridges, “I am not here to make a living. I am here to make a difference.”

Not only a Milton native, Tom remained a local, graduating from both Milton Union High School and from Milton College.  He taught school briefly before joining General Motors in Janesville where he spent 32 years. The last 20 of those 32 he served as Administrator of the Rick Holte Education Center.  Tom was also busy paying his civic rent by serving for 19 years on the Blackhawk Technical College Board of Directors as well as a variety of leadership roles at St. Mary Parish here in Milton. I think you can begin to see his draw to education and his life focus of giving back.

I knew Tom in high school but not well. I was a transplant from the East Coast when 16 so I am not a native, but I strongly identify as a local. My wife, Sue, is a Milton native and knew Tom pretty much all through school. We saw Tom and his family from time to time over the years, so I was acquainted with his activities.

In 2010 I was working on establishing the Milton Area Youth Center so was looking for Board members.  I reached out to Tom. As I explained the plans for MAYC, I saw his eyes light up and I knew he was all-in.  I was so pleased to have his experience and his passion. You see, that’s Tom. When he agrees to participate, he is always all-in. He gives himself fully to the programs and organizations in which he believes. MAYC was no exception and its motto, Building Lives, Building Community resonated with Tom and fit him so well.

I began to serve on the School Board in 2008. Tom was elected to the Board in 2011. Once again, I was pleased to be officially working and collaborating with a person of Tom’s character. He was consistently prepared, asked great questions, and fulfilled his responsibilities in an admirable manner. He broke the mold on how to be an effective board building rep. in his assignment at Milton East. The School District’s motto is – Opportunity, Achievement, Community. Tom continues to mirror this in his life. After 9 years of service to the School District of Milton and our kids, last night was Tom’s final School Board meeting.  This makes me sad and is the cause of my reflection today.

Tom’s approach to life reminds me of a great old folk song written by David Mallett and covered by many artists. I prefer Peter, Paul & Mary (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHhRyjwYnX0). The words go like this, Inch by inch, row by row, gonna make this garden grow. All it takes is a rake and a hoe and a piece of fertile ground. Inch by inch, row by row, someone bless these seeds I sow. Someone warm them from below till the rain comes tumbling down. Plant your rows straight and long, temper them with prayer and song. Mother earth will keep you strong if you give her love and care.” Perhaps that is Tom’s secret from the farm and his family because he plants the rows of his life straight & long. He does temper them with prayer and song as he gives his community love and care.

Tom, you believe in something bigger than yourself. You exhibit no ambiguity when it comes to the question of – does the community owe us or do we owe the community? You always stated that it is about the kids. This is who you are.  Your remarkable record of service is because you made a choice, a conscious decision to step up, to serve, to create a preferred future for those coming behind. What a record! What a legacy! What a sower of positive seeds!

Thank you, Tom, for your service, your time, your dedication, and for showing us the way. Let me leave you with these words from Jim Will, “As individuals, everything we do affects our organizations, our community’s culture. We have no choice whether or not we leave our mark. Our only choice is what type of mark we will leave.”  When it comes to community service, you are a positive Outlier when compared with the general population.

TOM WESTRICK, I am proud to be associated with you!  After all, Kids Matter

#cruzan4milton#WAM