JOE GRAVES

GRAVES: Rarity of ESD success proves new playoff system needed

One of the pitfalls of writing a timely piece for a daily newspaper is that on occasion, you must write about an event that will be over by the time the article is published but remains in the future as you write. Thus, as I write this, I am unaware of the outcome in the football playoff game between the Mitchell Kernels and Sioux Falls Washington.

By Joe Graves , November 01, 2011

Educationally Speaking: Difficult, gloomy work, but it comes with silver lining

On occasion in my career, I have been fortunate to teach a course in educational leadership. They say that you never learn anything quite so well as when you teach it, and the saying generally proved true for me as I prepared for and taught the course.

By Joe Graves , October 18, 2011

GRAVES: Anti-bullying police are latest education fad

Bullying is a serious problem in America’s schools, as well as in its parks, friendships, families and everyplace else human beings come into contact. Unfortunately, as some have tried to help schools deal with this issue, they have also represented the problem in a very superficial, one-dimensional, way.

By Joe Graves , October 04, 2011

GRAVES: Superintendent Seuss: Only in kindergarten

When Daily Republic reporter Ross Dolan told me last spring that the next Progress edition for the paper would be on kindergarten, I wanted to ask him just how they thought they could possibly find enough to write on about one grade level in school. Having seen the finished product come out over four days last week, however, I have to admit that, indeed, their coverage was both interesting and comprehensive.

By Joe Graves , September 07, 2011

GRAVES: D.C. superintendent fired for truly serving students

With summer vacation’s conclusion (finally!), I have been trying to spend at least a brief time considering to just what advantage I have put the recent 13-week hiatus from classes.

By Joe Graves , August 23, 2011

Opinion: E-readers not welcome here

eSchoolNews, which bills itself as providing “Technology News for Today’s K-20 Educator” recently published, digitally of course, an article titled “What schools should consider when buying e-readers.” And before I even made it past the first paragraph of the article, I had answered the author’s question with a much simpler response than his own: Schools should consider not purchasing them in the first place and whipping any they currently have in Lake Mitchell or whatever their corresponding body of water happens to be.

By Joe Graves , April 19, 2011

Opinion: Budget cuts back for another visit

When Simon and Garfunkel sang the beginning words to “The Sounds of Silence,” “Hello darkness my old friend,” they tapped into something quite deep in the human psyche. Though I’m typically not a fan of any music written since the 1940s, I have to admit that song always gives me pause. In fact, when the final school budget cut numbers came down recently from the state, those same words occurred to me. Then, in a mental spoof, they ran back through my head as “Hello budget cuts my old friend.”

By Joe Graves , April 05, 2011

Schools scramble to deal with budget cuts

As public schools across the state formulate a plan to handle the 6.6 percent cut in state funding approved by the Legislature and signed by Gov. Dennis Daugaard, Superintendent Bruce Carrier said his district is “in good shape” thanks to money on hand. The cuts are part of the state budget for fiscal year 2012, which begins July 1.

By Austin Kaus , March 26, 2011

Opinion: Education should be given back to states

It is no particular secret that I have been opposed to the federal No Child Left Behind legislation from its inception a little more than 10 years ago.

By Joe Graves , March 22, 2011

Among local elementary schools, Longfellow test scores lag

Students at Longfellow Elementary tend to come from lower-income households than students at Mitchell’s other two public elementary schools. Longfellow students also tend to have the lowest test scores when compared with the other two schools, and educators say that’s not a coincidence.

By Ross Dolan , March 18, 2011

Opinion: SD educators have had their say, with dignity

It is often said that the squeaky wheel gets the grease. There is even a parable that suggests as much about the tendency of friends to help us out at times not so much out of friendship but capitulation to our pesky persistence (LK 11: 5-8).

By Joe Graves , March 08, 2011

Opinion: In school finances, recognize what works and protect it

While it never actually appears, verbatim, in the Hippocratic Oath that physicians take or took, it nevertheless remains a traditional maxim within the oath to “First, do no harm.” The advice is simple and sensible. If you have a problem, as a first step, don’t make it worse. That doesn’t mean it is always correct, however. Edward Jenner, after all, began his work by transferring pus from a blister on a milkmaid infected with cowpox to the arm of healthy patients. The result was a patient with some illness but also immunization from the frequently mortal scourge of small pox.

By Joe Graves , February 22, 2011

Opinion: Obligated to give top-notch education, no matter what

Several years ago, one of our Mitchell Middle School instructors, Kelli Baysinger, handed me a sheet of yellowing, well-worn paper taped to a framing piece of tattered gray construction paper. On it was a bit of prose titled “The Superintendent’s Lament.” The prose includes eight couplets, each of which has two sentences expressing the superintendent-specific notion of “damned if you do and damned if you don’t.”

By Joe Graves , February 08, 2011

Opinion: With state’s budget, we’re all in it together

As a small boy, I spent a great deal of time visiting my grandparents in Ashton, Iowa. Time spent with them in that small town was really just bliss. And it came with a very old-fashioned feel. Many of the town’s roads were still gravel. The town whistle and church bells told you what time it was without the need for a watch, not that I ever really cared what time it was there. Water came from the cistern and you could get it from the house’s faucets or a pump in the front yard. My grandparents were old-fashioned as well. I never saw my grandfather outside without a fedora on his head and I never saw my grandmother wearing anything other than the kind of a dress you see on the farmer’s wife in Grant Wood’s American Gothic. They had raised a family through the Great Depression and timetested practices, virtues, and faith were their bedrock.

By Joe Graves , January 25, 2011

Graves says he won’t accept pay raise this year

While his compensation was not discussed as part of Monday’s school board agenda, Mitchell Superintendent of Schools Joe Graves told board members that, given looming cuts in the state’s funding formula for schools, he will not accept a raise this year if one is offered.
Graves’ disclosure came following an unexpected defense of the superintendent’s compensation by board member Dana Price.
Responding to a recent letter to the editor published in The Daily Republic that suggested Graves gave himself a raise last year, Price clarified that Graves has no say in setting his own compensation.

By Ross Dolan , January 25, 2011