Craig Hockenberry

Craig Hockenberry: Partnership 20/20

I had the most incredible opportunity to be a part of the creation of the first vision center inside of a public school. It started with a tour of Oyler School with John Pepper who was the former CEO of Proctor and Gamble and it ended with the nation’s first ever vision center inside of a public school. After a tour of Oyler with John Pepper we sat in my office and discussed what was next for helping the children of Cincinnati. I spoke about the medical obstacles that still remained including dental, medical, mental health, daycare, and vision. I got to the vision issues we were having and I could tell he wanted more details. I explained to him that several hundred kids annually go without proper eye care in Lower Price. It was clear that Mr. Pepper did not like hearing this. It was clear at that very moment that we were going to do something about it. (I remember saying, Craig Hockenberry he is not going to allow this to go on so get prepared)

When Mr. Pepper left I returned to my office and met with my team to debrief the tour. After our meeting I took a quick look at my emails and not even two hours after Mr. Pepper had left I had an email from the CEO of Luxottica. This email led to connections with Onesight and before you knew it eye folks were all over the Oyler campus.

The next steps were to identify a place inside Oyler and get permission from Cincinnati Public Schools to allow Onesight to develop an eye clinic inside Oyler School. When called CPS I remember the words from then Superintendent Mary Ronan, “Craig Hockenberry, it better work!”

The answer was yes! We immediately started developing the designs, talked about procedures, naming rights, and how it would serve not only Oyler kids, but kids across the city. Everything fell into place.

In 2012 we opened and became the pioneers of eye care and the first to open in the U.S. Entering now its ninth school year, the vision center has provided eye exams to over 8,600 students in Cincinnati and dispensed over 6,200 pairs of glasses.

By Craig Hockenberry

Craig Hockenberry

Craig Hockenberry

Craig Hockenberry Superintendent

Craig Hockenberry Superintendent

Craig Hockenberry Superintendent

Craig Hockenberry

Craig Hockenberry

Craig Hockenberry

Craig Hockenberry

Craig Hockenberry

Craig Hockenberry Superintendent

Craig Hockenberry Superintendent

Craig Hockenberry: The Ultimate Partnership, Adopt-A-Class

A call from Bill Burwinkel to discuss a holiday partnership with his company ended up impacting the lives of thousands of children in Cincinnati.

It was a fall afternoon and the school day had just ended at Oyler. I got a call from Bill Burwinkel who was a longtime supporter of Oyler and a good friend. He was interested in starting a program that included adopting a class for the holidays, however it was much different than your ordinary Christmas party.

His idea included reading, writing, building relationships, mentors, expanding parterships with schools and companies, and yes a huge Christmas party at school during the last week before winter break. I remember the official first class back in 2004 was a sixth grade class on the third floor at Oyler School. When I walked into the room to say thank you to National Marketshare I was completely overwhelmed by the incredible giving spirit.

The volunteers were opening gifts with kids, eating pizza, and having conversations with some happy children. It looked like a Christmas morning in an affluent home somewhere in the suburbs. For many of the kids this was their only Christmas and one of their only chances to see professionals and build relationships with people outside of their community.

Following the first Adopt-A-Class Bill and I met several times to talk about expansion. He got more people to buy into the philosophy of a yearlong partnership that included a timeline of events, programs, letter writing, field trips and much more. He then spoke to companies close to Oyler or companies who already had a partnerships such as Kemba Credit, the Consult Inc., Consolidated Metal, Postal Employees Credit Union, Paycor, Jackson & Lewis, and many more. Then the following Christmas we added several new classrooms and eventually the entire school Preschool thru eighth grade were adopted. These partnerships turned into much more. They included Reds games, field trips, spring letter writing, tours of their companies, job shadowing, and of course they culminated with Christmas party in December.

Although Oyler School is the iconic ground zero for Adopt-A-Class after those early days Mr. Burwinkel expanded the program into more than 30 schools and over 300 business throughout the region severing over 6,000 kids. This program has left an amazing impact on these children.

By Craig Hockenberry

Craig Hockenberry Finding Our Values

Craig Hockenberry: Identifies Core Values

By Craig Hockenberry

The Three Rivers School District is a unique animal. It sprawls through the hilly southwestern Ohio terrain along the Ohio River. Parts of it feel rural, and yet a significant number of the residents of this area depend on urban Cincinnati for their income … and their education.

Most school districts are housed entirely in one municipality. However, the Three Rivers District, despite not being much larger than many similar districts, includes four different municipalities with their own elected leadership.

The villages of Addyston, Cleves, and North Bend each have their own council and mayor. And Miami Township, which encompasses those three villages, has a Board of Trustees.

This means that responsible decision-making in the school district necessarily involved a gauntlet of officials and official bodies. In order to create a district that was responsive to the needs of the community, an effort had to be made to identify common values and concerns.

Naming our core values would help focus a district that could otherwise be torn by competing interests and ambitions.

Why identify core values?

If you have worked for a corporation, attended a large church, or assisted with a nonprofit, you have likely encountered core values. You have likely also come across the group’s mission and vision statements.

It would be easy to dismiss these ubiquitous statements as unnecessary timewasters - corporate exercises that are meaningless to people doing the real work of the organization.

But the opposite is true.

The reality is that core values are a valuable investment of time and energy. When created with authenticity and implemented with integrity, these statements help every individual confidently represent the whole group in every situation.

They align custodians and executives, front line experts with behind-the-scenes professionals, and help create a cohesive unit.

This doesn’t mean everyone is hugging each other and singing “Kumbaya.” It means that when there is a conflict or a concern that falls outside the policy and process manuals, everyone has the same guidelines for how to move forward without waiting for an answer from a principal or a superintendent.

And in the business of education, where the experts are on the front lines working with kids in classrooms every day, getting rid of timewasters and obstacles is a crucial part of a leader’s work.

That doesn’t mean work can’t happen without core values and mission and vision statements. It can. But conflict resolution then falls more heavily on elected or hired leadership, and might not always represent the values of the whole group.

Filling the gap

When I arrived at Three Rivers, there were no identified core values. My predecessor was a beloved and effective administrator, and in a small rural district like this one, significant issues pop up less frequently than in larger and more diverse districts.

Choosing to take these steps to identify our values was not a way to say previous leaders had been less effective. But what it did do was give me a chance to learn from the community that was a neighbor to my own community, but was very different. I lived in Price Hill, on the west side of Cincinnati, just a few minutes’ drive from Three Rivers. But my urban neighborhood and this rural township were very different from each other.

This process also gave members of the community a chance to talk with each other and identify common strengths and beliefs. I had been warmly welcomed into a school district that was successful on the state report card, but that was losing a battle to keep some of their children in their own district.

Being so close to the urban core of Cincinnati meant that some families, especially Catholic families and those families that could afford it, sent their children to Catholic high schools like Elder and Seton.

I felt that one of my responsibilities was to build a school system that tempted more of those families to make the shorter drive to Taylor High School rather than the longer, and more expensive, trip to LaSalle.

I knew that if we came together as a community to talk about our values, we could build a bridge. And I believed that if we set appropriately ambitious and inclusive goals, we could create an even stronger school district. One that met the needs of the entire community.

So I started the process to identify our core values, as detailed over several following posts.

Craig Hockenberry Finding Our Values

Craig Hockenberry: A Leader Finds Ways to Have Important Conversations

By Craig Hockenberry

When I was selected as the Superintendent of Three Rivers School District in Southwestern Ohio, I knew I was facing some new and interesting challenges.

First, the district spread across multiple municipalities and governing structures, which meant that it was difficult to get the community to rally behind the schools. This was not because they didn’t like the schools, they did. However, each village was its own entity with its own mayor, and the larger township had its own elected leadership. There were multiple layers of authority and thus multiple opinions about the best way forward in most matters.

The second challenge is our proximity to Cincinnati and highly-regarded Catholic school system. This meant that some families of means opted out of our public system and were not invested in our success.

Third, the district had never taken the time and energy to identify their core values.

As an experienced leader, I knew that tackling this third problem could help address the first two.

I set out to do that early in my tenure.

Getting the right partner

Though I lived in nearby Price Hill, I was not familiar with the Three Rivers community. I set about meeting with as many people who would meet with me to learn about the community.

This work led to the surprising finding that the community wanted a swimming pool. I wrote about this previously in a different series of posts.

As I met with members of the community to learn what they valued and wanted from the school system, I kept in mind my understanding that we needed core values to create a unified sense of what made Three Rivers unique. I also knew that as a relative outsider, I needed to find trusted brokers in the community to help gather people together to identify our core values.

Pretty quickly I met Tim Urmston. He was active in the community and also happened to be the founder of a Cincinnati company called SEEK. They are world-class community-builders. Most interesting is their willingness to see empathy not as merely an emotion, but as a tool for problem-solving.

Importantly, he had done core value work with several Fortune 500 companies.

Perhaps more importantly, though he could afford to send his kids up the hill to the Catholic schools, he loved and sent his children to Three Rivers Schools.

I had found the perfect ally to help us have a conversation about our core values.

Scheduling the conversation

Tim was clear from the beginning that the core values work could not be piecemeal. That is, we couldn’t do it in a series of meetings with different people over many weeks or months. Sure, doing that would yield core values, but no one would feel passionate about them, because no one would feel real ownership of them.

He insisted that the work needed to be done in one day.

This was important work, and I wanted to capture a paid day for my staff without losing a day of instruction, so I got creative.

Saturdays are busy, especially for educators and parents, so I knew this would have to happen on a Sunday. Additionally, it required 8 hours, so I proposed a time after church.

Sunday 12:00 - 8:00pm.

This, of course, caused some Three Rivers staff to balk.

So I offered a day of personal leave to central office staff who attended.

Personal leave is a paid day off to handle personal matters. It is essentially a “no questions asked” day off, though there are some negotiated rules about how it can and can’t be used.

Tim also insisted that we work in a beautiful, comfortable, and unique location. For that, I booked the Cincinnati Observatory.

He also required that we be able to work without stopping, even through meals. I hired caterers for lunch and dinner.

One by one we tackled the obstacles to setting up a concentration day to hammer out our core values.

I believe it was my flexibility in meeting the needs of the individuals involved that helped our process go so smoothly. Instead of asking people to donate their time and energy to the district, I used the district’s resources to answer their questions and meet their needs.

No one was there because I bought lunch and dinner. But the people who needed to be there got lunch and dinner, and a beautiful location, as a measure of our gratitude for their service and time.

Then we had to do the hard work of actually identifying our core values.

Craig Hockenberry

Craig Hockenberry Finding Our Values

Craig Hockenberry Superintendent: A Leader Seeks and Incorporates Feedback

By Craig Hockenberry

Three Rivers School District is a welcoming and nurturing small-town school district, even though it encompasses three villages. When I arrived as Superintendent, I was not totally surprised to find they had not done the work of identifying their core values and creating a strategic plan for the future.

I had this in mind as I started my listening tour. Speaking in churches and meeting on the occasional dining room table, I learned that residents were fiercely proud of the district. When they identified a community swimming pool as a need - something they lost when the old high school was recently rebuilt - we found a way to combine resources and put one in a new recreation center.

So we started the core value work by creating space and time to write. On a Sunday, with time compensated in personal leave, my full administrative team and others met at the Cincinnati Observatory for a full day of brainstorming, writing, and wordsmithing ... and catered meals.

At the end of the day we had summed up our past, present, and hope for the future in these three identified values. We would …

- Cultivate Excellence

- Inspire Innovation

- Nurture Inclusion

Hockenberry: Getting authentic feedback

We were working with a parent of Three Rivers students, Tim Urmston, who was the founder and CEO of SEEK. He had helped lead Fortune 500 companies through visioning and crafting core values, and his expertise had led us to identify values that resonated with our team.

He cautioned me that finding these statements was not the real work.

We had a room full of people who believed in them because they wrote them, and because they were from the community. We knew they captured the spirit of who we were and who we wanted to be.

But for core values to really resonate, there had to be buy-in from the larger community.

We needed to elicit authentic feedback from our constituencies.

Our building administrators agreed to go back and speak to their Parent Teacher Organizations, to attend community meetings, and to vet these core value statements at their staff meetings. The goal was to get meaningful community feedback.

Craig Hockenberry Putting that feedback into the mix

The administrators diligently took these statements to the community. They got valuable feedback that provided powerful insight to the spirit of Three Rivers schools.

Perhaps my favorite part of working with this core values process was learning how deeply the Three Rivers community valued diversity.

As a rural community, Three Rivers was almost entirely white. However, because we were public schools, we knew the importance of valuing every child as they arrived at our doorstep. We had a large population of students with special education needs, and they were our children.

When I hired the district’s first ever black administrator, Ceair Baggett, he was welcomed.

In the listening and feedback process, we learned that the members of the Three Rivers Community truly value diversity. We learned that they were eager to give their students diverse experiences.

We were urged to hire black and immigrant employees whenever possible. Our parents knew that many of their children would work in Cincinnati or other cities, and experience with a diverse set of people would prepare them for the reality of working in the larger world.

It’s possible that I expected something different. I could not have hoped for more. Three Rivers was really committed to being diverse and welcoming to all.

This feedback was carefully collected and funneled back to SEEK. They incorporated the feedback into the descriptors that accompanied each phrase. In this way, the voice of the larger community was included in the core values statements.

They truly represented our values and our voices.

Superintendent Hockenberry: Communicating the core values

We knew that we still had hard work ahead. We needed to present the information in an unbiased way to the community.

Sure, the Board and I could roll them out at a Board meeting, but we needed a trusted member of the community.

Again, Tim was the right person for the task. He had worked the process from the beginning, and represented an important voice in the community - he was not just a facilitator, after all, he was a parent communicating our values.

Once you have identified what drives you, this must be shared with everyone in the district. One reason these values are important is because they give everyone a sense of what is important to the organization as a whole.

We put banners in the villages, featuring the core values and pictures of our students. We placed similar banners in our school hallways. We incorporated these values into our lessons, so we could grapple with what they meant to us as individuals.

And the core values served a larger purpose. Now every person had something to point to if there was a dispute about how something should be handled, or how to move forward in a conflict.

We would …

- Cultivate Excellence

- Inspire Innovation

- Nurture Inclusion

And this could now happen in every corner of the district. From a student’s desk to the central office receptionist’s waiting room, these values could help guide our decisions and unify us like never before.

And they would also lay the path to creating our first ever district strategic plan.

Craig Hockenberry Three Rivers

Craig Hockenberry Superintendent

CRAIG HOCKENBERRY SUPERINTENDENT

WRITTEN RESPONSES

By Craig Hockenberry

What is the role of the superintendent and the board of education in curriculum development and/or innovation?

Since school boards have the ultimate accountability for curriculum they do need to have firsthand knowledge of the scope of curriculum and the overall programs in all the schools, however their responsibilities narrows down to some very important roles. I have listed below just some of the roles of the board in curriculum.

§ To be updated regularly on the content and scope of the curriculum.

§ To be informed of state guidelines involving curriculum and instruction.

§ To be familiar with textbook adoption policies and procedures.

§ To be aware of sensitive community values regarding curricular issues.

§ Work with the superintendent to keep community updated and involved with curriculum.

§ Develop Board level committee work around student achievement and curriculum.

§ Allocate funding to support best practices in curriculum and instruction.

§ Honor and celebrate student achievement at board meetings.

The superintendent works closely with the board of education to update them on important changes at the local, state, and national level so that they are informed and can make important decisions regarding curriculum development. The updates should include achievement data at all levels and best practices both locally and regionally.

The superintendent must work closely with the board to hire, develop, train and retain highly effective curriculum directors, principals, and teachers and provide them support to implement the curriculum. The superintendent should be working with community leaders at all levels to seek out resources that will be innovative and resources that can be used to reduce barriers to student achievement.

Describe how you would design orientation for administrative staff members, teachers, and board members new to their positions.

Orientations are critically important at all levels in a school district. Each one is different and requires designs that are on-going and focus on growth as well as orientation.

Board Members

§ Reach out to board members running for office and invite them to start attending monthly board meetings. This will help orient them before they are elected and will give them an idea of work flow at a board meeting.

§ Arrange a meeting after election results are final to discuss with them the basic roles and responsibilities, board policies manual and direct them to OSBA handbook for board members Board Handbooks | Ohio School Boards Association and information regarding new board members For New Board Members | Ohio School Boards Association

§ During the time of November through January before they are sworn into office, include them on important communications and updates to ensure they get a clear understanding of how communication flows through the team. Also, I would use this time to discuss the importance of CONFIDENTIALITY.

§ Set up weekly meetings with new board members and include tours and other opportunities to meet teachers, cooks, instructional aides, bus drivers, principals and support staff.

Teachers and administrative staff members

§ Set up a social gathering off campus with all new staff in the spring for the purpose of relationship building. Invite principals, key members of their teaching team, and other staff that will be important to their support. Plan ice breaker activities and give time for new staff to meet veteran staff and others familiar with the district. I would use this day to assign mentors for each of our new hires.

§ Set up a spring meeting with each new staff before the end of the school year to give them a chance to see the school in full operation.

§ Bring all new hires to work one day before all staff reports and prepare a day long agenda that includes; time in their rooms, additional meet and greets, tours, logistics, reports and updates from all departments, and much more.

§ Set-up a yearlong monthly meeting with all new hires using key district leaders to develop a supportive agenda and opportunities for new hires to talk about what is going well and what challenges they are facing and opportunities they see during their first year with us.

What criteria would you use to assess the district’s operation in maintenance, transportation, and food service programs?

There are many options to assess the district operations in maintenance, transportation, and food service programs. Some of these would include multiple measures of financial impact, safety data, customer satisfaction and staffing. Having quality leadership overseeing each of these departments and meeting with them weekly to discuss opportunities and strategies for efficiency is critical in assessing each department. Weekly visits to each department and operational updates at district leaderships meetings and to the board of education could also aide in assessing these departments and making adjustments.

When dealing with each of these departments, there are many opportunities to create customer satisfaction surveys. These surveys could follow a work order with maintenance or quarterly surveys for transportation and food service. Reviewing these results and presenting them to the district leadership and board of education can help us all make improvements and support these different departments.

Developing board level committees such as the building and grounds committee and operations committee could help with oversight and these committees could reach out to experts in the community to join and give us feedback and support.

Finally, it could be beneficial to do a professional external audit of each department and get the necessary feedback from professionals outside the organization. These audits could be used to put together some objectives in long range planning and forecasting.

CRAIG HOCKENBERRY SUPERINTENDENT

Craig Hockenberry: The Robert and Adele Schiff Early Learning Center

I remember taking Mr. Schiff on a tour of Oyler School in December of 2010. We started with all the different services throughout the building that included; Mental Health, medical, college access, tutoring, parent center, vision center, social services, and I showed him the future plans for dental services. I then took him through the high school, middle school, and elementary. He was very engaging and interested in the concept of the Community Learning Center and with our partnership with Darlene Kamine. Mr. Schiff had many questions about student achievement, social work, and other systems we have put in place to remove barriers for kids growing up in poverty. He asked all the right questions and I could tell right away that he wanted to be a part of the success at Oyler.

We continued our tour of the school and talked in great detail about breaking the cycle of poverty. As we moved through the conversation and through the tour I could almost feel the question coming from him that I knew was going to change Oyler School forever. We went back to my office and within a few minutes the question came and I was READY!

Mr. Schiff asked me if there was one thing that Oyler needed more than anything else to help continue with the great success what would it be? I started my answer before he even got all of his question out. I looked him right in the eyes, and told him we needed to capture the students from Lower Price Hill when they are infants and develop them as toddlers, preschool, and then seamlessly transition them into Kindergarten. In short, I told him we needed them inside this facility 3-4 years before they hit a Kindergarten seat and while they were here we needed them involved in top quality early learning activities as part of their development.

Days after the tour, I was told that the Schiff Family would be donating funds to create the Robert and Adele Schiff Early Learning Center at Oyler School which would allow us to operate one of the most innovative early learning centers in the entire region. Their impact has been tremendous and the partnership has been truly one of a kind. Children age 6 months to 4 years of age have access to top quality childcare giving them opportunities to prepare for Kindergarten.

By Craig Hockenberry

CRAIG HOCKENBERRY: Mental Health Services in Schools

By Craig D. Hockenberry

The early days of my career as a school leader in Cincinnati Public were filled with some extreme behaviors of students that pretty much took over my entire day and in many cases my evenings. When I was principal at Oyler School in Lower Price Hill from the time we turned the lights on until the time we turned them off, most of the time we were handling behaviors that were totally out of our control. We had situations that called for hours of physical restrain, attempted suicides, bizarre sexual behaviors, schizophrenia, and many others.

As you can imagine we spent countless hours away from instruction trying to solve these behaviors and protecting other kids. The amount of loss instructional times was overwhelming and it played a critical role in our early days of poor student performance, however after many sleepless nights we came up with a way to treat these mental health issues and became one of the first schools in the region to develop a mental health partnership that had a huge positive impact on our school.

I was introduced to several people at St. Al’s Orphanage who has a 190 plus year history of working with students in the Cincinnati area. The introduction quickly turned into a tour of Oyler and then almost immediately turned into them placing a mental health therapist inside our school. His name was Bob Ryan and within weeks he had a FULL case load. I remember him coming to me and saying, “Craig Hockenberry, we need another therapist and you are going to need additional office space”.

The weeks that followed turned into St. Al’s putting yet another full time therapist inside our school. The two of them worked together shared some office space, worked out a schedule, and were very flexible in supporting our mental health needs. (CRAIG HOCKENBERRY)

After six months are caseloads at Oyler continue to grow and grow and within two years of our partnership with St. Al’s we had added four full time therapist. Before I left to become superintendent of Manchester Local in Adams County we had added a psychiatrist and a doctor 3 days a week. We had many amazing partnerships at Oyler and St. Al’s was right up there as being one of the most impactful. They had a very efficient way of dealing with mental health issues that our students were experiencing by using therapy, medical, and adjusting placements.

CRAIG HOCKENBERRY

CRAIG HOCKENBERRY

TRLSD Board-Treasurer/Supt-Administrative retreat

The Westin Cincinnati Hotel-21 E. 5^th Street Cincinnati, OH

CRAIG HOCKENBERRY

Saturday, February 27th - Sunday, February 28th

7:30-8:30: Arrival/Breakfast (CRAIG HOCKENBERRY)

8:30-900am Welcome (Craig, Hockenberry)

-Overview of the day (C, Hockenberry)

-Results of the culture survey (Hockenberry Superintendent)

9:00am-11:45pm: culture survey split visioning - top 10/goals action items

11:45-1:00pm: Lunch Potbelly’s (CRAIG HOCKENBERRY)

1:00-3:00: Ennis Britton

3:00-4:00 BOARD PLANNING (CRAIG HOCKENBERRY)

4:00pm-5:00pm Happy Hour/Social-Team Building

5:00pm-6:00pm Break-out session

*BOE-Supt/Treasurer Review August retreat notes

*Asst. Supt./Director of Curriculum/ Communication-Principals (Planning 2016-17)

6:00-8:00pm Dinner Rock Bottom CRAIG HOCKENBERRY

8:00pm- Team Building

Sunday, Feb. 28^th

9:00am Share out 10 goals based on the culture survey

CRAIG HOCKENBERRY THREE RIVERS

A-F Report Card (CRAIG HOCKENBERRY)

I write this as a concerned career educator.

As one who has taught and served as an assistant principal, principal and now superintendent and one who worked in urban, rural, and suburban school settings for the past 25 years, I continue to be stunned. Our use of the wrongheaded A-F report card system to “grade” Ohio Public Schools is baffling.

We are killing true education for the sake of a high stakes testing culture. The creative and individual gifts teachers bring to their classrooms are being stunted. The vast majority of parents do not understand the complexities figured into the equations of these school report cards and the majority of our taxpaying public does not either.

I have set high standards for academics in each junction of my career. I still get excited about innovation, excellence, and doing the right things for kids and families as we prepare them for college, the military, and their careers. However, we have gone overboard with testing, and it is killing our profession. (Craig Hockenbery Three Rivers)

I should be able to tell anyone who asks how many different mandated tests we administer in our schools, but I can’t. The number has changed every year in every leadership role I’ve held and in every district I’ve worked.

Education will always be an imperfect endeavor, as we perpetually attempt to find the best ways to teach what our students need to thrive in today’s world. However, it should be obvious that this extensive testing has not contributed to that goal; it sucks the life out of teachers, staff, and administrators and, more importantly, our students.

The A-F report card presents a convoluted, confusing message about the details of what actually happens in our schools each day. It cheapens the stellar work our teachers and principals are doing. I have the privilege of watching some of the most engaging teachers in the State deliver some of the most rigorous lessons to students whose attention they manage to successfully captured. Unfortunately, I observe these teachers, knowing full-well these students—ultimately—had better get ready for the next, upcoming test, and that the teacher had soon better put away the creative and authentic lesson plan.

Why?

Because there are various lists, dates, equations, and trivial factoids that need to be remembered for a single day—Test Day.

I am not promoting an entire pivot from all testing. There need to be ways in which academic growth and knowledge are measured. I have no problem with tests being a piece of the measuring equation; however, it must be that—a piece.

CRAIG HOCKENBERRY

We have created a culture of students who are overwhelmed with high stakes testing. The entire month of April and May are consumed with altered class schedules, small group testing, canceled specials, and there are signs on virtually every classroom door:

“QUIET: TESTING.”

Anxiety rates and mental health issues are climbing. Suicide rates are reaching all-time highs for junior high and high school-aged students. Saying that testing is the cause of this particular tragedy would be both wrong and irresponsible, but I will ask this: Should schools—to the degree that we are capable—be seeking ways to lessen stress, or should we continue adding to the unnecessary stress of our students?

The sheer volume of testing creates unnecessary stress for both students and teachers.

The A-F report card system is a bad one. It creates a punitive culture, one that has some of our most talented teachers leaving the profession. Like any line of work we need to be held to high standards, but it’s time we get it right.

Getting rid of the A-F system is an excellent starting point.

Craig D. Hockenberry

Former Superintendent Three Rivers Local Schools

CRAIG HOCKENBERRY CINCINNATI

CRAIG HOCKENBERRY SUPERINTENDENT THREE RIVERS

Economic Center

Talking Points -April 15^th 7:30am (CRAIG HOCKENBERRY)

I would like to thank the Western Economic Council for asking me to say a few words about education this morning.

Also, how great is to be with Principal Otten? Congratulations, on a remarkable career.

I have had an exciting journey in public education over the last 23 years. I have worked in 3 different school districts urban, rural, and now suburban.

I have worked as a teacher, an asst. principal, a principal, and a superintendent. CRAIG HOCKENBERRY

Aside from the great kids, families and staff I have worked with over the years I found it incredibility rewarding to work with partnerships both public and private to help impact the lives of children. CRAIG HOCKENBERRY

I started my career in CPS where I was involved in a national movement called Community Learning Centers. (CLC) CRAIG HOCKENBERRY

The idea was based on a concept that would make schools the hub for services and the focus would be on “the whole child”. It was a very multi-dimensional approach to education. CRAIG HOCKENBERRY

Health Clinic –Cincinnati Health Department /Growing Well

Dental Clinic- Delta Dental

Vision Center-One sight-Luxottica

Early Learning Center- Cincinnati Early Learning Center

Mental Health Services-St. Aloysius

All of these services were based on a sustainable business model with strong public and private-partnerships. The big picture was that each of these partnerships provided a service that would impact academics.

As the services and partnerships increased we saw a dramatic climb in student achievement.

Oyler gained national attention as we developed this super model for public and private partnerships and we caught the attention of NPR-Marketplace and American Public Media. From this came an awarded winning documentary titled, Oyler, One School, One Year.

The documentary has been screened across the nation and has won several national awards. CRAIG HOCKENBERRY

I was honored to be a part of this effort to transform a community.

After 15 years, I left Oyler and I was fortunate enough to work in Adams County for 2 years as Superintendent of Manchester Local. Manchester was located 71 miles east of Cincinnati along the Ohio River.

Manchester was the opposite of Oyler. It is one of Ohio’s most rural school districts. CRAIG HOCKENBERRY

-1000 kids

-131 square miles

-High poverty (working poor)

-Majority of the families were farmers-tobacco, corn, cattle

-Agricultural & vocational education top priorities

-Very religious (10 commandments)

-Extremely high achieving school district

During my 2 years in Adams County one of the most interesting observations was that the children were as poor as kids in the urban centers and poverty was still at a high level, but the family unit was still intact. Unlike Oyler where there was a complete deterioration of the family unit.

Now, I’m the Superintendent of 3Rivers which also has been a different experience.

We have an economically diverse school district with families in poverty, middle class, and very wealthy. CRAIG HOCKENBERRY

Recently, 3Rivers closed 5 of it schools and consolidated into one campus.

-63 million dollars

-7 acres under roof

-3 Schools (3Rivers Elementary, Taylor MS, Taylor HS)

-State of the art auditorium (Best HS auditorium in state of Ohio)

-400 GEO thermal wells to heat and cool the building

-We transport students 1,600 miles every single day

-We the have the 2^nd largest parochial school population in the state.

-22 million dollar operating budget

-242 employees

-2400 students (increase 20-30 per year)

-38% of our student are on free and reduce lunch

-We serve 322 SWD

Again, I’d like to thank the Western Economic Council for the invitation to come and talk with you. I’d also like to extend the always open invitation to tour our great school.

CRAIG HOCKENBERRY CINCINNATI OHIO

James N. Jacobs Award for Outstanding Administration in Cincinnati Public Schools

CRAIG HOCKENBERRY CINCINNATI OHIO

2020: Stacey Hill-Simons, Evanston Academy

2019 – Angel Roddy, Mt. Airy School

2018 – Amy Randolph, Oyler Community Learning Center

2017 – Ceair Bagget, Ethel M. Taylor Academy

2016 – Susan Bunte, Cincinnati Public Schools

2015 – Tianay Amat, Hyde Park School

2014 – Jacquelyn Rowedder, Academy for World Languages

2013: Cheryl Broadnax

2012: Christina Russo

2011: Jessica Shelly

2010: Craig Hockenberry

2009: Mary Ronan & Eric Thomas

2008: Anthony Smith

2007: Marvin O. Koenig

2006: Michael Geoghegan

2005: NA

2004: Robert Seuss

2003: NA

2002: Michael Burson & Kent Cashell

2001: Sharon Johnson

2000: Steve Adamowski

1999: Bev Eby

1998: Greg Hookl

1997: Dennis Matthews

1996: Jack Schroder

1995: Lionel Brown

1994: Kathleen Ware

1993: Theresa Henderson

1992: Michael Brandt

1991: William Dickinson

1990: Frank Fields

1989: Sandra Sommer

1988: John Knoeghel

1987: Ray Finke

1986: Jennifer Cottingham

CRAIG HOCKENBERRY CINCINNATI OHIO

CRAIG HOCKENBERRY NAMED William Henry Harrison Boys Scout Award

The William Henry Harrison District of the Dan Beard Council, Boy Scouts of America will hold its 31st annual West Side Sports Breakfast at 7:30 a.m. In May at the Willow Event Center in Colerain Township.

The West Side Sports Breakfast is an event that recognizes community leaders that exemplify servant leadership, scouting values and serve as role models to young people.

This year’s honorees included Craig Hockenberry, superintendent of the Three Rivers Local Schools Local School District. The Boy Scouts of America selects its esteemed honorees for their community service past and present, including leadership roles that support youth initiatives throughout local neighborhoods.

Proceeds from the event benefit the 2,300 youth in the Boy Scouts program in western Hamilton County. Craig Hockenberry was also the superintendent of Manchester Local in Adams County and was the longtime principal at Oyler School in Cincinnati Public.

This is the premier fundraising event in the William Henry Harrison District, increasing awareness and support of scouting in local communities on the West Side. Donations support local programming and outreach services for youth of Dan Beard Council, Boy Scouts of America. Hockenberry is a longtime supporter of the Boys scouts and has partnered with the William Henry Harrison Division for several years.

Craig Hockenberry

CRAIG HOCKENBERRY NAMED 2013 HEALTH CARE HERO

The Business Courier hosted its 2013 Health Care Heroes awards dinner on Tuesday night, where finalists were honored and winners received recognition. This award ranks very high on the list of public service throughout the City and all the finalists had incredible backgrounds.

The winner of the Community Outreach category was OneSight Vision Center at Oyler School. The award was accepted by Oyler Principal Craig Hockenberry.

Craig Hockenberry pathed the way for many services at Oyler School throughout his 15 years as the principal of the inner-city school. His partnerships with the Cincinnati Health Department, Growing Well, the Community Learning Center Institute, Delta Dental, The Cincinnati Early Learning Center, St. Al, and many other helped forge a path to public-private partnership across Cincinnati Public.

Mr. Hockenberry took the concept to rural Adams County as well as Three Rivers where he was the superintendent for six years. The vision center at Oyler was the first vision center located in a public school in the United States. Craig Hockenberry leadership and experience with partnerships helped jump start the concept in the region and across the nation. CLICK HERE

Even before it publicly opened at Oyler School, doctors at the nation’s first school-based, self-sustaining vision center discovered a fifth-grade boy who has been living virtually blind. Doctors detected the boy’s acute vision problem while testing equipment to prepare for the public opening and dedication of the OneSight Vision Center inside the Lower Price Hill school last week. The self-sustaining vision center also outfitted the boy with glasses, as it is expected to do for hundreds more children.

“If you grow up in a world where you don’t know any different, you think this is the way it is,’’ says Craig Hockenberry, Oyler's principal. “You can imagine the impact on learning when a child cannot see the board or a read a book. The vision center will help us get these kids the vision care they so desperately need.”

The full-service vision center will provide comprehensive eye exams, glasses, fittings, adjustments, medical eye care and vision therapy with an onsite optometrist, ophthalmic technician and optician. It is expected to serve about 2,000 students per year.

CRAIG HOCKENBERRY CINCINNATI, OHIO

Craig Hockenberry Can Facilitate Strategic Planning

Craig Hockenberry Can Facilitate Strategic Planning

When Craig Hockenberry arrived at the Three Rivers School District in Southwest Ohio, he found a district with big dreams, active students and parents, and a proud history of academic and athletic achievements. He also found that some of the wealthier residents of the multiple villages that created the district together chose to send their children to private Catholic schools in nearby Cincinnati.

He was determined to make sure that the local public schools presented a compelling alternative to these families, in the hopes that more of them would choose to send their children to Three Rivers. More importantly, he wanted the district to offer the strongest possible education to students, preparing them for a rich and productive life.

So Craig Hockenberry started filling some gaps.

First, he went on his own listening tour of the district, where he learned of their pride in their past swimming glory - including an olympic swimmer. From this, the district partnered to create a new public indoor swimming pool, at no additional cost to the school system itself.

Then he partnered with a local parent and businessperson to create a Core Values statement that captured the community’s hopes and dreams for their children and their schools.

Then, with a values statement in place, he contracted with Dr. Bobby Moore and his company EPIC Impact Education Group to develop a strategic plan.

This strategic plan would help them better utilize their resources and take steps to live into their values over the following 3 to 5 years. It would bring accountability, clarity, and increased achievement if done correctly. And Craig was committed to doing it correctly.

CRAIG HOCEKNBERRY A strategic plan requires strategic meetings

As detailed in two previous articles, Dr. Moore met with every conceivable constituent group in the district, usually on multiple occasions and at times that were convenient for them. For employees and students, including the Board of Education, these meetings happened “on the clock” so that there was no barrier to their participation. For parents, meetings happened at multiple times, so parents with different daily routines and needs could find a convenient time to participate.

The rules for engaging the community were intentionally strict and cast a wide net. Building principals were tasked with communicating meeting dates and times and recruiting all parents - not just the most outspoken or supportive ones. Community meetings intentionally involved people in leadership positions, including the police and fire chiefs.

Further, these meetings were run by Dr. Moore in a systematic way. There was always an agenda published in advance, and a scribe was present to capture ideas in the moment instead of relegating them to memory.

The goal was clear: to hear from EVERYONE in the Three Rivers School District.

And to meaningfully involve them in developing a strategic plan.

Dr. Moore conducted these meetings in a formal, comfortable, but business-like way. When people challenged the data, he directed them back to the source. When one person claimed to have read the whole report and challenged a part of it, Dr. Moore pushed back with specific information that showed the data was correct as presented.

This sent the important message that the strategic plan was not an effort to please everyone, or to give every person with a complaint a platform to broadcast that complaint.

Instead it was a serious effort to look at the most accurate, up-to-the-minute data and determine the best way forward in alignment with Core Values as determined by the community.

CRAIG HOCKENBERRY Leadership must implement the strategic plan

Of course, after all of the intentional listening and review, after more than a year and a half of the two-year process is completed, the data all comes together in a thorough and comprehensive report.

And the district leadership set aside time to dive into that data to set the new course.

They first looked at the information - performance data and community feedback - in each area of the state report card.

At this time, the district did not yet have a score in the Career and College Readiness category, but Craig and other leaders looked at this category too, because they would receive a score in it starting the following year.

Then the leaders looked at the resources they had available to bring to bear on solving these problems.

They looked closely at budget sources and amounts, as well as expenditures. They worked to improve transparency with spending, so they could tell whether money was really being spent in alignment with goals, or if that money was being wasted.

With this plan, the leadership team went back to the Board of Education, who approved it.

Craig Hockenberry is a leader who knows how to create a strategic plan and get it passed and into full effect.

CRAIG HOCKENBERRY CINCINNATI OHIO

Craig Hockenberry Believes in Strategic Planning

When I became the Superintendent at Three Rivers School District, I immediately worked to determine our path into the future. As detailed elsewhere, I began a year-long community engagement process to help identify the values of our community - how they viewed the schools and their role in the villages that made up the Three Rivers Local School District.

However, even before that process, I was aware of some glaring concerns in the district. To date, we had never identified our core values. Worse, we had never articulated a five-year plan for the future.

As near as I could tell from talking to staff who had worked there for a lifetime, and from reviewing Board meeting notes and the plans left to me, the district had never invested in creating a strategic planning process.

This is not to point fingers. There are plenty of well-run organizations of many sizes that manage to move forward and to achieve important goals without ever developing a five-year plan. What I knew, though, was that identifying core values and creating a strategic plan makes achieving your goals easier. Craig Hockenberry

Craig Hockenberry:A strategic plan makes it easier to achieve your goals

Imagine setting out on a car trip by announcing you are going driving, getting behind the wheel, then pulling out of the garage. Then at each intersection, you turn the way that feels right.

You’ll definitely get somewhere, but where? You’ll likely end up at a place you’ve been before. After all, if you are depending on your past experience and decisions to get you somewhere, they are likely to land you in the same places you’ve been, or with the same results you have gotten in the past..

It seems to go without saying, but it is easier to be successful when you do these important things:

1. Identify where you are trying to go

2. Make a plan for how to get there

Simple, right?

That is the goal of strategic planning, only instead of being about a trip to the grocery, it is about attaining the biggest goals your organization hold: clearly identify where you are trying to go, and then make a concrete plan for how to get there.

I initiated the work that led to our strategic plan by holding dozens of meetings with stakeholders across the Three Rivers district. I talk more about that process in this series of posts linked immediately below.

[Insert links, 1 link to each post of the listening process.]

Craig Hockenberry: Planning for a Strategic Plan

In the listening process, I learned a great deal about the past of this proud school district, and the hopes for the future. And there was one major surprise: they wanted us to bring back a community swimming pool, which had been eliminated when the high school was rebuilt.

We were able to build a partnership to get this done without adding any financial burden on the school budget.

This groundwork allowed us to invest deeply in creating our core values, a process detailed in this series of posts.

[Insert links, 1 link to each post of the core values development process.]

By engaging community stakeholders and responding to their needs, we had clarified the deep connection between the schools and the community. We - the entire community - knew the importance of the schools, and our vision for what they look like when everything was going well.

However, we had not yet addressed our academic goals in any formal, meaningful way. A third, more rigorous, process was needed to accomplish that.

We needed to develop a strategic plan.

For this, I reached out to Dr. Bobby Moore of EPIC Impact Education Group. Dr. Moore and his company lead strategic planning for schools and districts of many sizes. I knew from his reputation and past results that he would be the person who could guide us through the strategic planning process.

I knew that this was a process that could not be led from within. It is too easy for a leader to focus on his own goals and fall prey to flattering comments and suggestions in this sort of a process if the Superintendent leads it.

Three Rivers deserved a thorough, impartial, and rigorous process. Craig Hockenberry

We already knew what we wanted the school district to look like, according to our core values But we needed expertise to guide us through a process where we looked objectively at multiple factors in our district’s success:

● Financial goals

● Academic goals

● Hiring and personnel focus

● Facilities usage

Dr. Moore led us on an intensive and thorough two-year process that involved all stakeholders from students to parents to staff to the school board itself.

In the end, we had a clear vision of not just where we wanted to go, but also exactly what we needed to do to get there.

CRAIG HOCKENBERRY THREE RIVERS