Craig Hockenberry: Faith Advisory, Aligning Partnerships

  Craig Hockenberry : Launching Board Development Convincing your bosses that they need professional development is never an easy task, but as a superintendent it is clearly part of your job.   It is easy when a newly elected board member joins the team to let them know that they need to attend an OSBA sponsored new board member orientation, but letting them know that we need a yearlong professional development structure in the evenings off campus is a challenge.     It was not a difficult decision to start the board development as two board members were spending their time focusing on things that were outside of their role as a board members.   The trainings occurred off campus at places such as Cincinnati State, Western Hills Country Club, the Three Rivers Campus, Forward Edge, and other places around Cincinnati.   I understood that regardless of the training the two board members had the right to act however they wanted, but might does not make right so the plan was to give th

  Craig Hockenberry : The First Strategic plan at Three Rivers By Craig Hockenberry After settling in as Superintendent of Three Rivers Local Schools and focusing on the development of the core values it was clearly time to start the process of developing the first strategic plan at Three Rivers. This was not going to be an easy task as change comes slow at Three Rivers.    We realized we were going to have to reach out for support.   There are many companies that help with this work and push you through the process.   We chose someone who had an impeccable reputation for getting results and working with the entire communities. That person was Dr. Bobby Moore the CEO of Epic Impact.   Dr. Moore taught us that setting high expectations for each of the strategic goals and not reaching them was way better than setting the bar low an achieving the goal.   That made us all uncomfortable because we felt the board would go after us all if we did not reach the goals.   We expressed ou

  Craig Hockenberry : The Development of Core Values By Craig Hockenberry Leading a school district without identified Core Values is like flying a plane without instruments.   When I arrived as the Superintendent of Three Rivers I was caught off guard about how little the district had identified goals, mission, vision, and core values.   Core values are the pillars that your organization is founded upon and what drives the work that you do every day at the board, district, and building level.   I knew this was going to be a huge task ahead and required some strategy that I knew I was going to need help to complete.   I reached out to a community member who owned a company called, Seek who worked with many companies throughout the United States on core values and other leadership work.   I took our entire team off campus to the Cincinnati Observatory on a Sunday and we turned this day into one of the more productive days I have had at Three Rivers.   We broke into groups of th

  Craig Hockenberry: Standing with Generals (North Bend, Oh.) - Every year a wreath is laid at the tomb of former President William Henry Harrison. And every year I got to stand with Generals.   Each year the White House dispatched a different General and each one did a spectacular job honoring our ninth president William Henry Harrison who is entombed in North Bend which lies inside our school district boundaries.    Only serving his term for 31 days, Harrison became the shortest tenure president. Harrison was also the first president to pass away while in office, therefore, his death sparked a brief conflict and many questions about presidential line of succession. The wreath ceremony which was implemented by President Gerald Ford has become White House tradition where the current president sends a wreath to each tomb of the former presidents in remembrance of their lives and their service to our countries.   CLICK HERE CLICK HERE As the Superintendent of Three Rivers

  Craig Hockenberry: Barrier free pipelines after High School During the 2017-18 school year in we began the process of developing the Taylor High School Career Academies in the Three Rivers School District.   CLICK HERE The Career Academies came out of the idea that not every kid is going to college and that was 100% okay, however what is your post-secondary plan?   Our goal was to launch 3-4 academies inside the high school that created a pipeline without barriers to a career.   In typical Craig Hockenberry style leadership if one career academy was good then five would be great so let’s start talking and building relationships.   Career academies promote smaller learning communities within high schools, creating personalized learning environments while promoting students’ readiness for college and careers. After describing the career academy structure, we present four research-based aspects that can assist school leaders and teachers in developing and implementing academies. C

  Craig Hockenberry: Faith Advisory, Aligning Partnerships When I was named Superintendent of Schools at Three Rivers I was pretty well experienced with bringing together partnerships to work with schools, however one of the challenges I faced at 3Rivers was all the different churches in the district and near the district that all wanted to do something, but we had no alignment.  Each group was doing something and duplicating almost everything.  As a result, during my second year as the leader of the district I put together a “Faith Advisory Committee”.  I created dates and times for the meeting, invitations, and agendas that were perfectly aligned to the core values of faith based organizations.  When the date came for the first meeting I was expecting two priests, however Craig Hockenberry was surprised when eleven church leaders showed-up!  This started a quarterly engagement meeting that grew to as many as fifteen and even sometimes over 20 people attending the meeting.