New AASA Rural, Small School Superintendent's Special Interest Group Created - American Association of School Administrators; includes other notes

School Administrator, April, 2000

At The National Conference on Education[C] in March, AASA held an organizational meeting for its new Rural, Small School Superintendent's Special Interest Group to discuss how AASA can provide better services to this, the largest, segment of our membership. AASA is currently looking for members interested in joining this SIG.

While the benefits and services of this SIG have yet to be fully defined, as an AASA and SIG member, you will receive the weekly electronic newsletter for small and rural school leaders, and information about special sessions at our national conference, the summer conference, and a new September legislative conference.

AASA Executive Director Paul Houston asked that a new group be formed within AASA to ensure passage and funding of the Rural Education Initiative, a bill providing new federal funds to rural, small school districts. The bill has passed in the House and is close to passing in the Senate, the final step will be to fund the bill for implementation in fall of 2001.

AASA Unveils New, Improved Proposal Process for The 2001 National Conference on Education[C]

In March, AASA announced a new, online conference proposal submissions process for people interested in speaking at The 2001 National Conference on Education.[C]

The new online process makes it easier to submit proposals, and streamlines proposal review. The process allows you to submit your proposal quickly, without having to send multiple copies via snail mail as in the past. And you will also be able to check on the progress of your proposal -- all online.

Today's Headlines

Today's Headlines provides you with just that -- a daily compilation of the stories of interest to school leaders from newspapers across the country. Headlines and links to full stories are posted at www.aasa.org daily by 7 a.m. (EST), so you stay on top of what's happening even on your busiest days.

* An Exceptional Effort for Special Education With too few trained teachers, some local school districts are resorting to unusual recruiting methods.

From The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Feb. 24

* Behvioral Drug Use In Toddlers Up Sharply Doctors are prescribing

stimulants such as Ritalin and antidepressants such as Prozac for preschoolers at rates that appear to be rising rapidly.

From The Washington Post, Feb. 23

* Important Date Nears for Falling Schools, Efforts at Reform Time is running out under federal law for the states to turn around about 8,000 of the nation's worstperforming schools in povertystricken neighborhoods.

From The Los Angeles Times, Feb. 16

* A Conservative Picks a Path Less Taken Arizona's Keegan, conservative flag-bearer and voucher advocate in the education wars, would be on GOP short list for ED secretary.

Hot Off the Presses

* AASA has added three new titles to its Parents: Partners in Education series. Reading, Writing, Speaking, and Listening Skills: Keys to Your Child's Success, Helping Your Child Succeed in Elementary School, and Helping Your Child Succeed in Middle and High School are the latest additions to this series designed to help parents work with schools to promote student achievement. Each book provides parents with useful information about the importance of parental involvement, concrete ways to work with children and schools to promote success, and a list of resources for further reading. Order and review the whole series today for only $15 ($18 non-members) plus S&H. Then order copies of individual titles for the parents in your school or district.

Check out the New Improved AASA Job Bulletin (Online and In Print)

Now that the AASA Job Bulletin has become primarily an online resource, it is attracting more attention than ever. The online Job Bulletin allows you to access the latest job openings for superintendents, assistant and associate superintendents, central-office staff, principals and others, 24 hours a day/7 days a week at www.aasa.org. Job Bulletin let's you search postings by job title, state, salary or any combination thereof, so finding the positions that match your experience and interests is easy. As an AASA member, you can even set up a search agent that automatically notifies you via e-mail when jobs matching your specified criteria are posted.

Jobs posted on www.aasa.org for 8 weeks or more also appear in the Job Bulletin print version in the AASA Bulletin (see page 6 this month). These abbreviated listings include district name, state, position, salary and contact information. If you see a job listed in the print version, be sure to go online for a more detailed description. In many cases, you can even contact the district or search firm directly online.

And if you have a job to post, doing so is easy. Simply go to www.aasa.org, click Job Bulletin, and follow the instructions. If you're posting an ad for 8 or more weeks, the following cut-off dates apply for the print version: April 20 for the June issue; May 20 for the July issue; June 20 for the August issue; and so forth.

A 4-week ad costs $200 (an additional charge is assessed for ads not submitted online; discounts are given for ads that run more than 4 weeks). For more information about submitting your ad, contact Tina Daberkow at 1.703.875.0777.