JOE GRAVES

Opinion: Sometimes, leading is choosing least of all evils

Last spring when Congress began seriously discussing the $26 billion Medicaid/school assistance or bailout bill, every superintendent in the country began receiving excited e-mails from national educational lobbyists asking us to contact our senators and representatives. I actually read the first one and then deleted it. The rest never saw the digital light of day before suffering the same, quicker, fate.

By Joe Graves , August 24, 2010

Opinion: Sadly, end of the year

Whiner Alert: In the two paragraphs immediately following, the author of this column engages in completely unjustified puling about a childhood event most mature adults would have long forgotten or at least gotten over, especially considering the fact that his childhood was idyllic, with loving parents, supportive brothers and excellent friends.

By Joe Graves , May 18, 2010

Opinion: New vision arises for old MTI campus

In 2000, when Chris Paustian first laid out the vision for a new campus for Mitchell Technical Institute just south of the interstate, the elegance and strategic purpose of the plan hit you like a revelation. The need for and advantages of the idea were just so clear once made manifest.
What was stunningly less clear was just how one would go about building a whole new campus for MTI. Campuses cost money and lots of it and neither a huge bank account nor a statewide commitment were anywhere in sight. It is to then Director Paustian’s credit, in fact, that he was able to lay out such a vision with no concrete way to turn a potential campus into a real one.

By Joe Graves , May 04, 2010

Mitchell meets two Title IX tests, fails one

To some, Title IX is just a lesson in history books. The younger generation of athletes may not know what it is, or why it exists, and cannot remember a time when female athletes were a rarity and girls had to fight for the right to compete. But for superintendents and athletic directors across the nation, Title IX is a part of everyday tasks such as scheduling athletic events and practices, buying supplies and uniforms, and deciding on athletic budgets.

By Leah Rado , May 01, 2010

Opinion: United front needed for age-appropriate learning

As a class assignment for a graduate American history course I am taking along with 48 other educators through the University of South Dakota this year, we are reading “Arc of Justice” by Kevin Boyle. In it, Boyle tells the story of the “Great Migration” of large numbers of blacks from the South to the North during the first decades of the 20th century. That trek was fraught with prejudice, discrimination and violence, proving that racism was not an institution peculiar to the South.

By Joe Graves , April 20, 2010

Opinion: Don’t let economy hinder education

Within the last few weeks, two major bodies of work emanated from Washington, D.C. (Three, if you count the health-care bill.) The first was the release of the new, national educational standards in English and mathematics. In fact, these were released some time ago but they finally reached the state level for local input.

By Joe Graves , April 06, 2010

Opinion: Past successes can guide us in tackling today’s problems

In my office, atop overflowing bookshelves, sit nine photographs of people in my family who went before me in education. Included among them are my great-grandmother, my grandmother, and my aunt, all of whom were teachers and one even a county superintendent.

By Joe Graves , March 23, 2010

Stadium bids come in $400,000 over budget

Bids for the demolition and reconstruction of the Joe Quintal Field stadium are about $400,000 over budget, but Superintendent Joe Graves said Friday he will recommend spending the extra money.

By Seth Tupper , March 20, 2010

Joe Quintal stadium bids come in $400,000 over budget

Bids for the demolition and reconstruction of the Joe Quintal Field stadium are about $400,000 over budget, but Superintendent Joe Graves said Friday he will recommend spending the extra money.

March 19, 2010

Opinion: The storm isn’t ‘perfect,’ but it’s a storm nevertheless

It’s not a “perfect” storm per se, but you’d have a hard time convincing several dozen school superintendents of that this last week. Just as the state Legislature grows ever closer to giving schools as much as 1.2 percent and as little as a great big goose egg, the Board of Directors of the South Dakota High School Activities Association announces they will be sanctioning soccer as a new school sport.

By Joe Graves , March 09, 2010

Opinion: Almost March — a time for spring, budget decisions

While I realize that spring does not arrive until March 20, according to the calendar this year, and while I also realize that even March 20 does not guarantee more temperate weather — we have missed school due to blizzards as late as the last week of April — my internal season clock always tells me that March 1 is spring. No matter how much evidence I see to the contrary during any given year, the little robin in my head announces to me on March 1 that spring has arrived. (Apparently this year, spring will be heralded by gargantuan piles of snow.)

By Joe Graves , February 23, 2010

Opinion: Weather not cooperating with schooling this year

Stupid groundhog.
Yes, I am fully aware that it really doesn’t matter whether Punxsutawney Phil sees his shadow or not, that it’s just a bunch of silly folk lore. And even if it did mean something out East, it wouldn’t work in South Dakota. If we only get six more weeks of winter after Feb. 2, we count ourselves fortunate.

By Joe Graves , February 09, 2010

Opinion: With testing, be sure the remedy is worth the price

Among both theologians and philosophers alike, there is an age-old conversation about the nature of humanity. It can be summed up as a debate over whether we are fallen angels or redeemed demons. In more practical terms, it is an argument about whether people naturally act honestly, being dishonest and vile only when a fallen world trains or tempts us in that direction, or naturally cheat, steal and swindle unless given the proper incentives not to do so.

By Joe Graves , January 26, 2010

Opinion: A positive undertaking: Scholarship program investing in our future

One of the things I truly enjoy about the first few weeks of school after Christmas break — and no, I am not referring to snow, which I detest more and more as my childhood memories disappear into that fog that comes to all people “of a certain age” — is the mail at school. Typically, I am not a big fan of the mail as it typically comes with little I would ever want to receive. The typical batch includes a blizzard of advertisements, news of some innovative and even more onerous federal regulation, and, of course, some state and federal report which must be filed within the next 30 days and which I truly loathe especially if I can’t foist it off on someone else in the district which, I have to admit, is usually how it works.

By Joe Graves , January 12, 2010

Students will make up one snow day at end of year

The Mitchell School District had two snow days in the bank at the beginning of the week. The bank is now overdrawn, and one day must be added to the school calendar at the end of the year.

By Ross Dolan , January 09, 2010