Craig Hockenberry: Faith Advisory, Aligning Partnerships

  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 incredib...

  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, Cra...

  Craig Hockenberry: Top Five Effective Ways to communicate with your Board   After almost eight years of being a Superintendent in two different districts I wanted to take a minute to share the top five ways that I found have been the most effective.   So, here we go! These are in no particular order.   Number One: Weekly newsletter.   I would send an email newsletter that highlighted several very important points for the week. The points included; people I met with, instructional topics, challenging conversations I had with employees, sports, and upcoming announcements.   I also put a very important section called HEADS-UPS.   (I think this was the only section they read!)   Number Two: Board Text Alerts. Some things can wait, some things cannot. The things that could not wait such as a huge fight, someone passed away, a teacher walked off the job, a principal got arrested they need to know those right away.    This is ...

  Craig Hockenberry: First Rural School Based Health Center I was named Superintendent of Manchester Local in 2012-13 school year.   It was my first Superintendent Job and I was excited to get to work.   My fifteen years at Oyler School in Lower Price Hill prepared me for the job and there were many projects I had to take on during my first six months.   The first project at Manchester was the creation of one of the state’s first rural School Based Health Center where kids and families could access top quality medical care without driving seventy miles away from their community.   The concept came out of the Community Learning Center Model where schools put top quality services inside of their schools such as medical, dental, mental health, daycare, food services, tutoring, and vision.   This concept took off in Cincinnati Public Schools, however I had no experience with this model in a rural community such as Manchester.   This was one of t...

  Craig Hockenberry: The 3R Academy Culture matters.  When I arrived as the Superintendent of Schools at Three Rivers there were three major topics I had to lead the district through as soon as possible.  They were, development of core values, strategic planning, and we had to address the poor culture of the staff.    Every day I heard the words I have come to hate….Morale, morale, and morale.  We could be feeding the staff a free meal during their lunch from food trucks and teachers would be talking about how bad the morale is at Three Rivers.  We would give them snow days, free spirit wear, an amazing party during teacher appreciation week and the words continue to come about their morale.  There were times I thought I was the captain of a pirate ship rather than a Superintendent of schools .  So to address the issue of culture and boost morale we created the 3R Academy.  This academy was a yearlong relationship building academy....

  Craig Hockenberry : Parent Advisory to the Superintendent   When you want to hear the truth about decision being made at the District level create a Parent Advisory to the Superintendent. Allow me to explain…   I was sick and tired of constantly hearing about Facebook posts regarding decisions we made at Three Rivers.     I had one board member who every time a post was made by one person she would screen shot it and send it to all the other board members and that became discuss.   This behavior constantly took the conversation away from student achievement which is place we did not want to be. One person, one post, no likes, and in some cases the person was even a convicted felon, but I took the high road and led through issues such as these by creating the Parent Advisory to the Superintendent .       We had each principal, key staff member, and community leaders give me the names of the most outspoken both positive and t...

  Craig Hockenberry: SHHHH it is the First Lady!  My first year as Principal of Oyler School in Cincinnati Public I received a phone call from the Office of the First Lady of the United States.   The caller simply asked if I was Craig Hockenberry [C1]   and then proceed to inform me that he was calling on behalf of the first lady of the United States of America.   My first thoughts were that someone was joking with me, however it was clear within a few minutes that this was not a joke.   They asked me to keep this quiet and that a secret service agent would arrive soon and give me details.     Sure enough I left my office and went outside to process the news and before I even opened the door I received a call from the United States Secret Service.   It was official, the First Lady of the United States would be arriving at my school in less than three days.   The secret service set-up some times to arrive at Oyler and I immediately...