International School of Belgrade – Page 7

School Starts at ISB

August 31, 2008August 31, 2008billkralovec

I have not been blogging much lately because our voltage reducer blew a fuse and I can’t recharge my camera batteries. It was also a busy and draining first week of classes. We decided to throw out the 10-day cycle, 7 period day a few days before classes began because it was unworkable. We switched to a 4-day cycle, 4-period day which incredibly worked out well. It makes for a less hectic day and the students have more electives.

It was an exhausting start of the year for Nadia and I because everything is brand new. It was also challenging for the boys to get up and walk to school with us. Yesterday the school held the welcome back BBQ which was a really nice day and today we finally have a chance to catch our breath.

Last week during the orientation, we took the all-staff photo in the garden of the high school. Nadia and I are together in the second row from the top, near the center on the right side. The secondary staff has 32 teachers and administrators that I am responsible for. The staff has been very helpful and supportive to me. There are a lot of good teachers here.

The students are more diverse and worldly from the students in my previous schools. There are 57 nationalities in the student body and they are from affluent and educated families and it reflects in their achievement.

I plan on blogging more often after I get my tech set up at home.

Owen likes his classmates although he is a little bored to be in kindergarten again. Oliver fell off the monkey bars the first day and kept running over the Mom’s classroom, but is now fully participating and enjoying his class. It was tough on Nadia to leave Ocean and I hope we can get a good balance with that.

ISB Administrative Retreat

August 9, 2008August 9, 2008billkralovec

Earlier this week I attended the ISB Administrative Retreat. The admin team of the school is pictured above. From left to right are Bane (IT Coordinator), myself, Eric (Director), Tim (Elementary Principal) and Zhana (Business Manager). The goals of the retreat were to get to know one another and develop trust, give Tim and I information necessary to begin contributing to the school, and to decide what we were going to do in the 2008-2009 school year regarding the school’s strategic plan.

It was a good idea to get away from the distractions of school and home. We were able to focus our time on working and getting to know each other. ISB is a world-class international school and to manage the daily operations of a demanding community, the admin team needs to work closely together.

One of the things that I will take away from my time at ISB, is the idea of setting essential agreements of the group before we begin working together. For example, the first agreement that we made is the needs of students come first in our decision making. Others include treating each other with respect, being honest, etc.

The informational items that we went through were forms of communication at the school, the budget, the crisis response manual, calendar, etc. There is so much for me to absorb coming to a new school. I am feeling a bit overwhelmed, but every day I am a bit more comfortable in getting a grasp of the scope of my responsibilities.

The heart of our work was going through the strategic plan. This was an initiative completed during last school year. The school and Serbia are going through incredible growth and change! In response to these changes, the school set out a clear, long range (5 year) plan on the direction it wants to head. All stakeholders were heard and the Board pulled it all together and defined the school’s goals for the next five years. It is a comprehensive plan and is available for everyone to see on the school web site. It was our job to begin defining how we were going to implement some of the plan during this upcoming school year.

The venue for the retreat was the BG Sports Center located about 30 minutes outside of Belgrade in the area of Kovilova. It was a hotel with sports theme. There is a huge basketball/handball/volleyball arena on the grounds. They also hosted this past June, the world championships in the Shotgun Events of skeet, trap, and double trap, so we did hear the occasional gunshots during our work time. The Serbian under 21 national basketball team was also training there and we got to see the Serbian national coach. The hotel and grounds were very nice.

View of the grounds of the hotel and the view towards Belgrade.

I want to give a special thanks to my wife Nadia for watching our children during our two day retreat. She put in a couple of tough days and a night with three little ones.

I look forward to a great year of working with my colleagues and the school community!

Summer Construction Underway

July 30, 2008July 31, 2008billkralovec

This is my first post about my new school.

I toured the high school campus yesterday with the school director and the construction project manager. The project is doubling the size of the high school building with an additional section on one side of the building and two floors added. The older part of the building is also getting a face lift, inside and out.

On the ground floor a new computer lab and storage areas were added for the IT department. The former computer lab was converted to a library, thus doubling the size of it. My office was moved from the first floor to a more spacious room on the ground floor. It will be better to be in the center of the action as a principal should be. There is also a larger reception area and the science laboratory was improved.

The first floor is the core area for student learning. New mathematics, humanities, and languages classrooms were added. The hallway and stairwell were enlarged, giving the students more space for lockers and to shuttle between classes. Below is a photo of the mathematics room.

The second floor has a spectacular new art studio. The students will be inspired by the expansive views of the southern forests and valleys of Belgrade. The large room will also serve as a place for student assemblies and teacher meetings.

The building is estimated to be done on the 5th of August. The changes will definitely improve student learning!