Truesdale to Lead ASCD
Valerie Page Truesdale, superintendent of Beaufort County School District in Beaufort, South Carolina, has taken office as ASCD's new president. Truesdale has been a district superintendent, chief instructional services officer, deputy superintendent, high school principal, assistant principal, personnel administrator, and college department leader. She is also proud to have been a teacher for more than 30 years.
Truesdale replaces Nancy DeFord, now immediate past president of ASCD. ASCD's new president-elect is Linda Mariotti, assistant superintendent of Granite School District, Salt Lake City, Utah.
EL—Your Summer Companion
In mid-June, look for Educational Leadership online at www.ascd.org/el. The summer edition will focus on promoting students' creative- and critical-thinking skills while enhancing academic rigor in the classroom.
In mid-July, look for The Best of EL in which we offer a compilation of the year's most provocative articles, one from each issue. Then we'll see you again in September, with our issue on The Positive Classroom, which will explore how schools can create harmonious learning environments for students from different backgrounds and with different ways of learning.
Speak Out for the Whole Child
ASCD is making it easy to advocate for the whole child. The new Whole Child Resolution Tool Kit can help you convince policymakers in your community to support a resolution that addresses students' five basic needs—to be healthy, safe, engaged, supported, and challenged.
Inside the tool kit, you'll find a sample resolution, tips for passing a resolution in your community, a sample letter advocating a resolution, sample letters to the editor, a sample petition, and a feedback form. To download the tool kit, go to www.wholechildeducation.organd click on Policy Blackboard.
Civics in Action
This past spring, more than 100 high school students argued and deliberated on First Amendment issues before two federal judges at the Alfonse M. D'Amato United States Courthouse in Central Islip, New York. The realistic simulation, in which students served as lawyers and jurors, gave students from Northport High School and Central Islip High School the opportunity to lead, negotiate, and problem solve as they took part in meaningful courtroom processes.
Northport High School is part of ASCD's First Amendment Schools Network, a national reform initiative designed to transform how schools teach and practice the rights and responsibilities of citizenship that frame civic life in our democracy. Now in its sixth year, the First Amendment Schools Network consists of nearly 100 K–12 public, private, and charter schools and includes more than 70,000 urban, suburban, and rural students in the United States.
Taped footage from the event will be available for the professional development of teachers and leaders in the legal community and to promote and support legal education programs nationwide.
