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Advocacy In Action – Profiling Jon Viscounte, HHEF Board President

Jon Viscounte is thrilled to be currently serving his second year as HHEF President, after serving as an HHEF Board Director since 2006. As a financial planner for 23 years, Jon excels at bringing people together to achieve a common goal, and views his role at HHEF as facilitating the flow of ideas, making sure communication is open and effective.

Recruited by another board member, Jon fell in love with the HHEF mission at once. Then in the process of transition, Jon saw an opportunity to be part of an exciting process. He believes passion for a shared vision brings good people together, and he has been instrumental in building and strengthening board membership, and also in helping to re-focus HHEF’s direction to deliver greater impact to the students across the Hatboro-Horsham School District.

Jon feels that “life is about family,” with his wife, Jean, and their three children that have been part of the Hatboro-Horsham school district. While his son Anthony, 20, has already graduated and is studying at Berklee College of Music in Boston; son Dom, 18, and daughter Gabrielle, 15, are currently students at Hatboro-Horsham High School.

Jon strongly believes that the more you educate yourself the better. He has earned his professional designations including Certified Financial Planner and Chartered Life Underwriter. He has also learned from students as a community baseball and basketball coach, when he sees kids learning how to adapt and deal with adversity.

Jon sees the 2009-2010 year as “a crucial time to determine the future” of HHEF, and with Jon at the helm there is a strong feeling that anything is possible. The all-volunteer board of HHEF will be working with Jon to achieve HHEF’s mission of enhancing the learning experience of Hatboro-Horsham students.

Programs in Action—HHEF Brings Sean Covey to Our Community

Sean Covey, author of “The 7 Habits of Happy Kids,” and “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens,” visited the Hatboro-Horsham School District for a day of presentations designed to engage teachers, administrators, parents, the business community - and the students themselves – in strategies to create schools where “everyone’s a leader.” As part of the One-Book, One-School, One-community Imitative, HHEF sponsored a day with Sean Covey, senior vice president of innovations and products at FranklinCovey, Inc., a world-renowned organization devoted to helping individuals, schools and businesses achieve greatness. His mission is to “inspire greatness in youth” and to give them the skills (beyond the 3Rs) they need for the 21st century workforce.

Mr. Covey addressed 1,200 3rd, 4th and 5th grade students who read “The Seven Habits of Happy Kids”;at an assembly at the high school auditorium. Then Mr. Covey crossed Horsham Road to attend a luncheon at the Manor House at Commonwealth National Golf Club to address area business people and civic leaders, discussing today’s changing world, its new set of rules and how to help create a pool of employees that can thrive in an organization and contribute to its success. Covey then returned to the high school to address 9th and 10th grade students, who are reading, ““The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Teens”. The day also began with a breakfast with district administrators talking informally with Covey, and a district steering committee meeting in the afternoon which Covey attended with district teachers and administrators involved in developing the district’s strategic direction and imitatives. In the evening, Covey met with district parents and community members at Simmons Elementary School to chat with them individually and present “The Leader in Me,” a discussion of the “ Seven Habits” language and its potential impact at home and at school. The entire day with Mr. Covey was the brainchild of Steven Glaize, Principal, Hallowell Elementary School, which was put into motion when he applied for an HHEF Innovative Learning Grant in January 2009. After months of planning, the entire day of programming was brought to fruition by Mr. Glaize with the support of HHEF and its Board Members. Mr. Glaize reflected on the day’s events and summarized it as follows: “Sean Covey’s visit to our district was extremely well received by our students, parents, staff, and members of our community. His visit has brought an energy and excitement to the themes of the 7 Habits and he has acted as a catalyst for thoughtful discussions across our school district and community on this topic. We are grateful to the HHEF to be able to fund and support this on-going initiative.” (More about Sean Covey follow-up activities going on at HHSD in our next e-News.)

No Student Left Indoors

Award winning children’s author, photographer and citizen scientist, Jane Kirkland, treated Hatboro-Horsham 5th graders to a lively and inspiring presentation on October 7th at Simmons Elementary School highlighting her unexpected career change from “computer geek” to wildlife defender and educator. Jane’s visit was sponsored by HHEF as a result of an Innovative Learning Grant that Jennifer O’Leary applied for last school year.

Captivated by the sighting of a bald eagle soaring above a Giant grocery store in Chester County, Jane made a life altering decision to dedicate her limitless energy and passion to inspiring children to notice that nature and wildlife surround them everyday, everywhere and with just a few seconds of observation they, too, can observe it, learn from it and protect it. Jane’s motto, “Take a Minute to be in It” was clearly conveyed by her creative presentation and zany speaking style.

Author of the award winning series called Take A Walk® books and the educator’s guide, No Student Left Indoors: Creating a Field Guide to Your Schoolyard, Jane has appeared on Animal Planet, PBS, Comcast CN8 and Kids Corner Radio. See www.takeawalk.com.
Blair Mill librarian, Jennifer O’Leary recognized the perfect fit of Jane Kirkland’s message and decided to combine it with the goals of the school district by applying for an HHEF grant titled, “Walk Through the Jarrett Nature Center with Jane Kirkland.”

Jennifer O’Leary commented that 5th Graders are quite active at the Jarrett Nature Center, taking digital photographs of plants and wildlife, taking samples of water from the pond for salinity testing, studying the life cycles of plants and insects, writing position papers condemning future building on the site and self-publishing booklets with their findings.

Thanks to the collaboration of teachers, librarians and the HHEF grant, this year’s 5th grade students may have heightened observation skills and may more readily take notice of nature – a benefit that will be further developed during trips to the Jarrett Nature Center this year. While visiting the Jarrett Nature Center, Jane Kirland agreed that “it is an amazing resource for our community and one that helps connect science, technology and research and writing skills into more meaningful experiences for our students”.

In keeping with her determination to preserve nature and wildlife, Jane even tapped on the windows of the cars in the after-school pick up line and asked parents to turn off their engines because Simmons is a “No Idle Zone ” and it’s not good for the environment! Following two assemblies with 5th graders, and a visit with the elementary school librarians and technology teachers, Jennifer O’Leary is now ready to build on what was learned that day. “The workshop that Jane Kirkland provided for the librarians and elementary technology teachers was excellent! Jane provided us with valuable ideas and techniques that we can implement in our field guide project that we work on with the fifth grade students."

Smart Boards at Blair Mill Elementary School

Though the blackboard stands as an aged symbol of education, it’s time is coming to an end.  Enter the SMART Board^TM, an interactive white board that takes learning in new directions.  Nancy Doherty, Principal at Blair Mill Elementary School, and Carmela Curatola-Knowles, one of three HHSD Tech Teachers, showed HHEF last month how the SMART Board^TM is changing the way educators teach and students learn, leading to high levels of engagement, enhanced self-confidence, and class recognition.

Much like your home computer or laptop, with drop down menus and tool bars, the SMART Board^TM is designed to provide a classroom experience where students are directly involved using reasoning skills.  Color, sound, and an array of functions offers students an increasing number of learning exercises, accessed through the schools’ site and the Internet.  Funded through the HHSD budget, with help from an HHEF Innovative Learning Grant, Blair Mill has eight such boards, with 85 in action across the district. 

Visiting Lynne Rodebaugh’s reading class and Lauren Pace’s math class, the students at Blair Mill Elementary School are clearly excited when the SMART Board^TM is rolled out.  Gathered together in the front of the room these 2nd graders were focused on the teacher’s lesson and actively engaged in the SMART Board^TM learning exercises.  It’s changing the way teachers do their craft, more readily involving students in group activities that require them to demonstrate learning, not just memorize facts and figures.

Reading in Action has students identifying a character’s traits by electronically hi-lighting specific words and phrases in the story which show them.  Ms. Rodenbaugh says this makes the kids feel successful, “proving to themselves as readers that they did in fact find the right answer.”

Ms. Pace says the SMART Board^TM “keeps them really engaged, they absolutely love it.”  In one math class exercise students must identify two numbers and the associated operand that equal the number given, and in this case there are multiple ways to arrive at the same correct answer.  There is no guessing, and they learn from their mistakes.

SMART Board^TM activities are not always teacher-directed, giving students more accountability for their own learning, getting them to problem solve in groups, and focusing them more because they all want a turn.  The kids and teachers at Blair Mill and around the district are excited about what lies ahead, and with the SMART Board^TM getting smarter all the time there is an educational paradigm shift at work here in Hatboro-Horsham.