Greetings are sent to you from a warm summer’s day. Here’s hoping this season finds you celebrating the plant life and growth in our community.
Our Dispatch topic is fact or fiction.
In today’s world of multiple information sources, it’s an exceptionally important skill for students to be able to decipher fact from fiction. One only has to “Google” any topic to find tens of thousands or even millions of entries related to that area. Who knows the source of the information presented? From whence do the authors speak? Beyond internet searches, the same questions should be asked when the media and people in general present information that is somewhat untrue, inaccurate, or a misrepresentation of the facts.
It has increasingly become apparent that information is provided from many sources that is indeed NOT fact, but rather pure fiction!
One of the most important jobs of the Superintendent is to provide accurate information. Like the students, we spend a great deal of time assessing fact from fiction. Let me give you an example…
When I met with our Technology Team a few weeks back, I asked them to address the rumor that the school district is giving away computers. Knowing the absolute integrity of our Technology Team members, I couldn’t believe the rumor, but I needed to get the proper facts from them directly. Here are the facts…
Our Technology Team members really care about the success of our students. One of them (on his own time and with his own resources) collects donated computers and fixes them up. He then places those computers in the homes of students needing them. There is no cost to the district and a huge benefit to the students. He is to be commended for this effort, as are so many of our Coventry employees who go above and beyond the call of duty. Indeed it is fiction that the school district is giving away computers. Instead, people are donating computers to needy students via school staff, private time, social service assistance.
As we move forward during difficult economic and political times, I encourage all of us to stay informed regarding the facts of a situation. What is presented as fact may indeed be fiction and we must learn to be as wary as we train the students to be!
Enjoy your summer.
Donna