A Great Inservice Day

I'm serious. Contrary to what normally happens on inservice days, we actually had a great one recently. The funny thing is, our district really did nothing spectacular other than find an incredible person to speak with us in the morning and work with us in the afternoon. I'm not sure how much his speaking fee was, but it was worth every penny. I haven't heard our teachers talk about how good an inservice day was in a long time - and it was all due to Michael Dorn.

If any of you have ever heard Michael Dorn speak on school safety and bullying, you know what I'm talking about. Michael Dorn, not of Star Trek fame, is one of the world's leading experts on school safety. His son is also an expert and has a video that is all over the place showing how students can conceal weapons in their clothing. His son wasn't there, but Michael is really the head honcho. He has tons of experience that makes him an incredible and interesting speaker. We had about 650 teachers in the room when he was speaking and I think he had the attention of all of the for well over an hour. I'm not going to go into detail about his speech, but it was very motivating and really made us think about the students in our school and what we are doing to help them feel safe - not just from intruders, but mostly from other students. I wonder how many other teachers have heard him speak.

Overall, a fantastic day.