SCHOOL BUS SERVICE TO BE ADDED TO THE CASUALTIES OF BUDGET CUTS

School districts that are feeling the pressure of budget cuts are turning to limiting bus service to save money. The move is made to prevent cutting anything that would hurt the classroom. This move has been met with a lot of outrage from the families in the various school districts. Parents are trying to figure out new work schedules that will allow for drop off and pick up, while other parents are worried about their child’s safety if they have to cross busy streets and dangerous intersections.

With school budgets seemingly getting smaller by the day, Applebatch is proud to still offer a free service to teachers. Teachers are given a place where they can come, for free, to share resources, solve problems, and find mentors. Budgets are getting tighter and schools are looking to shave every penny they can. Applebatch being free helps the teachers and the school budgets.

Another feature that Applebatch offers that can help cut costs is their teacher network. The teacher network allows teachers to come together and solve common problems. Teachers can find way of saving money together. This way hopefully some districts can keep their busses on the road.

Lastly, Applebatch can help districts by offering cheap job postings. Applebatch teacher jobs is a place where schools can post job openings exclusively on http://applebatch.com and the school will know only qualified teachers will see the job posting.

In these days, with budgets and school buses going down, Applebatch is proud to present possible solutions to today’s problems. Please join Applebatch.com and let us know what you think.

PARENT GROUPS MUST FUND TEACHER AIDES ONCE AGAIN

After much debate over the necessity of teacher aides, the City Department of Education and the teachers’ union have finally reached an agreement. As mentioned in a previous blog, the city had banned parents’ associations from directly hiring school aides because the union felt that the assistants were doing the work of teachers and were entitled to union wages and benefits. The agreement settled on allowing principals to hire school aides with the money that is raised by parents’ groups. At the Applebatch Teacher Community , we are excited to see how the new agreement will work out.

Parent groups and teachers depend on the aides to monitor hallways, tie shoelaces, and most importantly allow teachers in crowded classrooms to concentrate more in instruction. The teacher aides will be paid by parent associations and their salaries will be placed on the official school budget, which makes the aides eligible for union protection. However, the aides are prohibited from performing any teaching work and must focus on staff support.

The agreement expires at the end of the school year. Along with the Education Department and union officials, Applebatch hopes that a long-term solution is created by then. This may include the creation of an internship program for the aides, as suggested by the president of the union, the United Federation of Teachers, Michael Mulgrew.

At Applebatch, we hope to provide teachers with all the necessary resources, including the help of teaching aides. Through this Teacher Network , both educators and their assistants can find teaching jobs in their areas. We want to encourage all teachers to take advantage of our free resources and share their experiences and ideas at http://applebatch.com.

Principals need to learn brand management

After spending years in consulting and helping big-name corporations turnaround under performing brands, I came to realize that principals need to think more like brand managers. While there has been a ton of focus on turnaround management in schools, the emphasis has historically been on replacing people to fix the problem. As any good brand manager know, people come and go but a brand image can sustain.

Therefore, I propose that principals take a brand management class and learn how to proactively manage their brands to (1) compete for talent and (2) increase parent engagement. For example, principals can leverage an online teacher community like Applebatch.com to build an online presence and promote the new happenings in the school. Principals need to promote and communicate changes to the old brand, and repeat those communications across channels. It takes time for change to occur and replace old images in our minds.

In addition, principals must broaden their teacher network to attract and find talent in various sources. Principals in new schools must use innovation to compete initially for talent. Principals cannot show up at a job fair or expect top talent to come into their schools while they are in turnaround mode. They must use sites like Applebatch.com to build a professional network of top performers and find talent in unconventional places.

As the school image improves, the turnover will decrease and less teacher jobs will be available in that school each year. Which, will give the principal an added benefit of being more selective and spending less time to find talent. School performance will increase and student outcomes will soar. Therefore, you can see that it all boils down to (1) great leadership and (2) great brand management.

To learn more, contact us at Applebatch or go to www.applebatch.com.