Dr. Carlotta Redish: School District Success

There are three major elements that I believe must be present for a school district to be successful in meeting the needs of all stakeholders, particularly its students. They are a strong effective leadership, a clearly communicate mission and vision, and strong district and community relations.

I am a servant leader who is fully aware that my power is not only dependent upon the needs and the will of those I serve, but also, the heights that I can take them beyond their expectations. My vision is for continuous improvement, growth, and prosperity for students, faculty, and staff members. To ensure success, district office leadership will support all Principals, in their efforts to be strong leaders, by sustaining a keen awareness and understanding of their school environment in addition to an awareness of issues impacting the district, students, parents, and the total school community.

The first task in supporting the success of a school district is to create an outcome based, expectation driven system, with a clearly communicated mission and vision supported by teachers and administrators who fully understand that our job is not to ask students ‘where’ they come from, but to show them ‘where’ they can go through education.

I cherish relationships and results with students, faculty and staff members, parents, and the community, and I am committed totally to building a sense of community and an environment of trust between my administration, the school board, and other stakeholders. My success in educational leadership is reflective of my ability to influence others through my example and calm persuasion rather than through the exercise of authority or coercion.

The original post Dr. Carlotta Redish: School District Success was published first on http://www.carlottaredish.us

BREAKING NEWS: Board Names Superintendent Finalists

After three meetings to give interviews, then special reviews and consideration to applicants for the position of district superintendent, the Chester County Board of School Trustees has announced its finalists. On Tuesday, the board held its final meeting and selected two male and two female finalists for the position left vacant by Dr. Thomas Graves, who resigned effective May 1. The candidates will come to Chester for a community “Meet the Candidates” reception at the district office on Nov. 15 from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. The board “worked hard” and was dedicated to the task of selecting a candidate to serve as the district’s new superintendent, said Interim Superintendent John Taylor. The finalists for the Chester County Schools Superintendent position are: Dr. Carlotta D. Redish, the associate superintendent for administrative services and instruction in the Cherokee County School District; Dr. Agnes M. Slayman, the executive director of secondary education for the Kershaw County School District; Dr. Ahmed Sean Alford, the chief instructional services officer for the Beaufort County School District; and Dr. Stephen C. Laws, superintendent for the Wilkes County Schools since 2003. A brief biography of each candidate is shared below:

Dr. Carlotta D. Redish has her Doctor of Philosophy degree from the University of South Carolina with a major in Educational Leadership and Policy. She has served as a history and social studies teacher, a department chairperson, elementary assistant principal and principal, a literary specialist, and director of personnel.

Dr. Agnes M. Slayman has her Doctor of Philosophy degree from the University of South Carolina in Educational Administration. She has taught middle school special needs populations and social studies in an alternative setting. She has been a high school assistant principal, a middle and high school principal, and the assistant superintendent for Curriculum and Instruction for the Kershaw County School District.

Dr. Ahmed Sean Alford graduated from the Citadel and earned his Doctor of Philosophy degree in Educational Leadership from the University of South Carolina. He has been a high school history and social studies teacher, a high school assistant principal and principal, a director of student support services and chief instructional services officer for Beaufort County.

Dr. Stephen C. Laws graduated from Wake Forest University and has his Education doctorate from Vanderbilt University. Prior to his current position, Dr. Laws served five years as superintendent of the Elkin City, NC schools. During his career, he has served as a workforce development teacher, has been an assistant principal and principal at both the middle and high school levels, and has served as a human resources director prior to his almost 14 years as a superintendent.

The board hopes to make its final selection at a special called meeting on Nov. 28, Taylor said. The new superintendent will be named shortly after that.

To view the original version on Carolina Gateway, visit: http://www.bloomfield.k12.nj.us/Portals/Chester/District/docs/BREAKING%20NEWS.docx

School Board Names 3 Superintendent Finalists

The Lancaster County school board has identified three finalists for the next superintendent – Dr. Jonathan Phipps, Dr. Carlotta Redish and Dr. Matrell Sturkey.
All three finalists work in S.C. school districts – Phipps in Abbeville, Redish in Spartanburg and Sturkey in Florence. One has worked in Lancaster County before. Phipps, the only finalist who is currently a superintendent, was here for 19 years before leaving in 2014.

“We’re impressed with how committed and passionate to children these three educators are,” said Bobby Parker, chairman of the school board. “Throughout their careers, they’ve worked to make a difference for children.”

Parker said the finalists share the district’s mission to make every decision based on what’s best for children.

“Any one of them would bring a wealth of experience and knowledge to our district,” Parker said.

The board is now scheduling individual visits so each of the three finalists can meet district staff and the community. Residents will have a chance to meet the finalists through drop-ins and an interview by a panel of community members.
The board received 17 applications for the position, which is being filled after the announcement of Superintendent Gene Moore’s upcoming July retirement.
Through those applications, the board identified the three finalists.

Dr. Jonathan Phipps, 44
Phipps is the superintendent of the Abbeville County School District. Phipps has served Abbeville’s 11 schools since 2014.

Phipps said, if chosen, his goals are to increase student engagement, make sure teachers are teaching the standards and to increase the graduation rate.
“I know there’s a lot of wonderful teachers and administrators” in Lancaster County, Phipps said. “I’d love to come back and be a part of it.”

Phipps said as superintendent he would also focus on the growth in Indian Land.
He said knowing the county well should set him apart from the other candidates.
Phipps said after spending almost two decades in LCSD, it’s “very exciting and humbling” to be chosen as a finalist.

In 1995, Phipps began his career in education as a teacher at Barr Street Middle School. He later served as site administrator for Indian Land Elementary and Middle schools’ summer program, assistant principal of ILES and ILMS, principal at A.R. Rucker Middle, principal at Buford High and the district’s director of secondary education.

Phipps was also an adjunct professor at South Piedmont Community College from 2005 to 2007.

Phipps, who was born in Tennessee, has an undergraduate degree in history and education from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and a master’s degree in early childhood education from the University of South Carolina. He has an educational specialist degree in educational administration and a doctorate in leadership in educational administration from Capella University.

Phipps said he enjoys traveling, camping with his wife, Michelle, and “chasing the ball around” on the golf course.

Dr. Carlotta Redish, 52
Redish is now assistant superintendent for human resources for Spartanburg School District 7, which has about 7,300 students.

Redish said she is “honored” to be named a finalist.

“I would love to be a part of all the good things that are going on there,” Redish said. “Lancaster is just a great place to be.”

Redish said her work in leading leaders has prepared her to serve as superintendent.

Her focus for the county is to build on the “great work Dr. Moore has completed” and preparing students to be college- or career-ready.

“I know that I have skills needed to get the job done,” Redish said.

Raised in Gaffney, Redish began a career in education as a teacher in Georgia in the late 1980s. She went to work for the Los Angeles Unified School District as the dean of students for Monroe High School in 1999. She also served there as an assistant principal for two elementary schools and as secondary literacy specialist.

In 2006, Redish moved to Cherokee County School District. There she was principal of B.D. Lee Elementary, then moved on to become the district’s director of personnel, associate superintendent for administrative services and instruction, interim superintendent and associate superintendent for accountability and planning.

She has served in Spartanburg School District 7 since 2013.

Redish has three degrees from USC – an undergraduate degree in political science, a master’s degree in secondary education and a PhD in child development. She has an educational specialist degree in educational administration from Jacksonville State University.

Redish said she enjoys spending time with her family and serving as youth adviser at her church, Island Creek Baptist Church.

Dr. Matrell Sturkey, 49
Sturkey is assistant superintendent for personnel services at Florence School District 1, which has just over 17,000 students.

Sturkey, originally from Marion, said she looks forward to working with school board members to accomplish their goals, which include addressing growth in Indian Land.

Sturkey said she’s honored to be chosen as one of the three finalists.

“It’s a great district,” she said. “Great programs, great initiatives. I would look forward to working with the students, faculty, staff and the community.”
Sturkey’s interest in the position reflects LCSD’s mission statement – putting children first.

“I have a heart for children,” Sturkey said. “It has always been my priority to put students first.”

In 1990, Sturkey started her career in education as a teacher in Dillon School District. She then served as assistant principal and principal at Johnakin Middle in Marion.

She became personnel director for Florence School District 4 in 2007. In 2009, she became director of curriculum and instruction, and at the same time served as principal for Brockington Elementary.

Sturkey served as interim superintendent of Florence School District 4 for five months in 2012.

Sturkey has an undergraduate degree in elementary education from Francis Marion College, a master’s in education administration and supervision from Winthrop University, and a doctorate in educational leadership from Nova Southeastern University.

Sturkey and her husband, Leon, have two daughters. Sturkey said she loves to spend time with her family and read.

To view the original version on Carolina Gateway, visit: http://www.carolinagatewayonline.com/content/school-board-names-3-superintendent-finalists

Fact Based Human Resources at ABN AMRO Bank

Today’s edition of our blog post series written by the speakers giving talks at the upcoming 2ML event, covers how ABN AMRO applies Machine Learning in their Human Resource Management department. Auke IJsselstein, the HR Analytics Lead at ABN AMRO, provides a summary of his talk for us. To discover the insights from his full speech, we invite you to attend his presentation session at 2ML Madrid Machine Learning on May 11.

Exciting times for the Human Resource Management department at ABN AMRO! This month, the HR Analytics department, has launched their all new and improved proposition into the organization. For four years they have been servicing the HR organization and Senior Management teams with their products HR Analytics and Strategic Workforce Planning. The HR Analytics Team views the fact that their department has doubled in size this year as a huge compliment for their work and also as a sign that the organization strongly believes in the power of data analytics and working in a fact-based manner. During these four years of experience ABN AMRO has learned a great deal, sometimes the hard way, as they admit. With the new integral approach to Fact-Based Human Resource management, the HR Analytics Team feels that they can make good use of their lessons learned and, having optimized their products, processes and tooling, are able to focus fully on gaining impact on their business goals.

As from 2013, ABN AMRO has been performing predictive analyses within the HR field. The main focus is to provide management with relevant insights to make better decisions regarding how to optimize their workforce to be able to reach the bank’s goals. In the early days, they did this mainly through using classical forms of analysis such as multivariate regression algorithms. As from 2015, the HR Analytics Team was introduced to the BigML tooling by iNostix (now iNostix by Deloitte). They started using Machine Learning techniques such as Decision Trees, Random Forest and Clustering next to the more traditional analysis methods. This gives them more flexibility and knowledge to match analysis methods better to the business questions and the characteristics of data at hand.

The aim is, of course, to be able to predict certain business and HR performance outcomes, but even more important for the HR Analytics Team is to better understand the drivers of these predicted outcomes. Most of their research focuses on explaining the human factors in reaching company goals such as client satisfaction and financial performance. For example, when they find that cultural aspects (e.g. communication, collaboration or leadership style) have a direct impact on customer satisfaction, they are able to give advice where and how to focus culture and training interventions.

Another trend they are witnessing and exploring is that in the near future, performing (basic) analyses will no longer be solely reserved for analysts. With the development of analytical tools that combine complex algorithms with user friendly interfaces and comprehensive visualization possibilities, analysis slowly becomes reachable for non-expert users. The Human Resource Management department at ABN AMRO are not there yet, but they are already offering on-the-spot analyses sitting at the table with senior managers. Of course this comes with risks and requires a good preparation, but they believe this is the way analysis will evolve, insights becoming available for larger groups of people.

At ABN AMRO Bank, they could not have achieved their current level of maturity in the field of People Analytics without their partners from iNostix by Deloitte, who helped them with building new capabilities and performing analyses, and BigML, who introduced ABN AMRO into the world of Machine Learning providing the ML platform. Therefore, Auke IJsselstein, Lead HR Analytics at ABN AMRO, is proud to present at the 2ML conference their views on fact-based HR, their proposition to transform the HR organization with hard-learned lessons, and examples of how they were able to bring valuable insights to senior leaders through Machine Learning and data mining. 

To view the original version on big ml, visit: https://blog.bigml.com/2017/05/09/fact-based-human-resources-at-abn-amro-bank/

A Study of the Leadership Practices of South Carolina Superintendents

Carlotta Denise Redish, University of South Carolina

Date of Award
1-1-2010

Document Type
Campus Access Dissertation

Department
Educational Leadership and Policies

Sub-Department
Educational Administration

First Advisor
Edward Cox

Abstract

This dissertation is a report of a mixed method study that examines the leadership practices of black and white public school superintendents in the state of South Carolina. The researcher explored any self- perceived leadership practice differences, if existent, between black and white superintendents and, if so, were the race of the superintendents, the size of the districts they served, or their years of experience in their current position are related to those differences. This study explored whether black and white superintendents drew upon different skills to perform their jobs. The researcher provided a background to the problem, a statement of the problem, the purpose of the study, the significance of the study, and overview of the study methodology.

The researcher utilized one rating instrument within this study. The participants completed the Leadership Practices Inventory (LPI) Self-form, developed by James Kouzes and Barry Posner (2003), as the self- rating instrument. Personal interviews were scheduled with ten superintendents after collection and analysis of the quantitative data. The open response, semi-structured interviews afforded the researcher the opportunity to triangulate the data through comparisons of interview data between black and white superintendents, comparisons of the interview data, and the mean score results for the five exemplary leadership practices on the LPI. The interviews were conducted to help verify and link the qualitative and quantitative data results.

Recommended Citation

Redish, C. D.(2010). A Study of the Leadership Practices of South Carolina Superintendents.(Doctoral dissertation). Retrieved from http://scholarcommons.sc.edu/etd/245

How Technology is Revolutionizing Education and Schools in America

For those that graduated high school before 1990, the world-wide approach to education and learning has been dramatically altered by technology. In those days there was excitement when the teacher would roll in the cart with a television set and VCR. It meant movie or documentary time! Back then that was the available technology, and when that’s all you know, you accept it as the norm and cool.

Education in American Schools Gets a Technological Makeover

Home economics and things like typing class, as we knew it, was coming to an end. In the mid 1980’s, schools across America began to introduce a combination of new classes to their curricula. Out with the typewriters and in with the desktop computers. Now, it wasn’t just typing anymore, kids were able to write, make instant corrections and interact with simple games and puzzles.

Back then, both teachers and students couldn’t begin to imagine what was coming. As schools were adopting computer sciences and modifying their curricula, the desktop computer and laptop computer were becoming more readily available. It didn’t take long before many households could afford to have a computer. Shortly after the benefit and impact of having a computer was seen, it seemed every household couldn’t afford to be without one.

By the end of 1990, all of the tools necessary for a functional web had been built. The coming five years would see the World Wide Web develop in leaps and bounds, connecting people all over the world. By the late 1990’s, it was evident that corporations, educational institutions and small business would require an internet presence if they were to survive and flourish.

At the turn of the millennium, it was now possible for everyone to communicate instantaneously worldwide. As well, information about anything and anyone was quickly becoming available to every person with access to the internet. Times had changed and the educational system would do the same.

Revolutionizing Education through Technology

Teamwork and communication among students could now be facilitated through email, course-based websites and chatrooms. Research has proven that collaborative learning enhances recall, understanding and problem solving. With this technology, students divided by geographic regions – unable to meet face to face – are able to participate in collaborative learning groups and peer studies.

One of the most important impacts technology has made on education is its personalization and efficiency. According to Dr. Carlotta Redish, technology has freed educators from repetitive tasks and having to deliver vast amounts of information, which enables them to devote more time to individual students. With a heightened ability to interact and get to know their students, teachers and professors are now able to adapt and develop their classroom strategies. Since technology has the ability to deliver those vast amounts of information, the specific needs of each learner can be more readily addressed.

Make no mistake. The role of teachers and professors is changing from a subject authority figure to that of a consultant or coach. In the 21^st century classroom, one of the primary duties of an educator is to design context and situations in which students assume more responsibility for their learning. With the use of technology, students no longer passively absorb information and content from an educator.

Education and Schools Revolutionized by Technology

Video and Audio – Not so long ago, it was an undertaking to make audio and video presentations. There was a necessity for expensive and bulky equipment to make it all happen. Now, all that is needed is a tablet, phone or laptop to make high quality recordings, which may be endlessly and effortlessly edited to meet the needs of the assignment.

Satellite Imagery – With satellite imagery, it is possible to virtually visit nearly any place on the planet at any time without leaving the classroom. While actual, physical field trips are important, visiting the street level views of the world’s most incredible locations is truly awe inspiring.

Social Media Technology – Students are now able to be in direct contact with authors, filmmakers, columnists, athletes and anyone else they may need in order to gather information or study. Social media has also taken the place of what used to be pen-pals. Pen-pals would write letters and mail them to each other. More often than not, your pen-pal would be in a different country. How exciting was that!

Websites – A student’s work is no longer limited to being presented to a classroom and its teacher, the distribution of the Internet makes it available to the entire world. Likewise, by creating a class or portfolio website, a collaborative or creative work can be published and distributed for the world to see. That potential alone gives prospective employers and school admissions staff transparency and access that was unthinkable just a decade ago.

Technology is Guiding the Revolution of the American Educational System

There are several driving attributes to this revolution. Technology has liberated education from the constraints of time and location. It is easier to access than the traditional campus-based system. Technology inherently reduces the labor-intensive attributes of higher education, making it more cost-effective. Finally, being student centered, technology vastly increases the student’s learning options.

The only certainty is that education at all levels must continue to evolve. As the educational system moves into the future, there will be many factors that will guide and shape it. Without a shadow of a doubt, technology will continue to be the number one driving force in that evolution – which has been underway for some time.

Source(s):
http://www.webconsultingandmarketing.com
http://flyersasap.com
http://acreelman.blogspot.com/2013/03/challenges-of-online-classroom.html

Upstate school official named as new SCSU board trustee

State lawmakers picked Dr. Carlotta Denise Redish on Wednesday to fill the District 5, Seat 5 seat on the South Carolina State University Board of Trustees.

Redish was the only candidate for the seat after two other candidates withdrew from the race.

She fills the unexpired term of Linda Edwards-Duncan, who ran unopposed for re-election last year but was voted out by lawmakers. Edwards-Duncan was allowed to retain her seat until a new board member could be elected. The term will expire in 2017.

Redish, of Gaffney, is the assistant superintendent of personnel and student services in Spartanburg School District 7.

She has an undergraduate degree in political science and a graduate degree in secondary education, both from the University of South Carolina.

She earned a degree as educational specialist in administration from Jacksonville State University and a doctorate in educational leadership and policy from the University of South Carolina.

Prior to coming on board as assistant superintendent in Spartanburg 7, Redish served as director of personnel in the Cherokee County school district and was then named associate superintendent.

To view the original version on The Times and Democrat, visit: http://thetandd.com/upstate-school-official-named-as-new-scsu-board-trustee/article_7bd57a6c-8ee5-11e3-84ec-001a4bcf887a.html