GISH principal attends leadership institute

Kent Mann, principal at Grand Island Senior High School  attended the seventh annual Summer Leadership Institute of the Principals' Partnership over the summer.

The institute is a program created by Union Pacific to support public high school principals in communities served by the nation's largest railroad.

During the three-day institute, Mann received professional development on topics essential to school leaders, including closing the achievement gap, leadership, mathematics literacy, ninth grade transition, and motivating underachieving students, among others.

Nearly 450 Partnership principals responded to the 2008 Principals' Partnership Poll, which was released at the Summer Institute.  Principals enrolled in The Principals' Partnership were asked the question: "Do you think students should be paid for earning good grades or higher test scores?" More than 80 percent (82.6) of the 438 respondents opposed that idea, while 14.8 percent supported it. For a complete 2008 Principals' Partnership Poll summary, visit www.principalspartnership.com.

The Principals' Partnership, the signature giving program of the Union Pacific Foundation, is one of America's premier business and education partnerships. The program supports a network of 1,000 public high school principals in 21 states.

In addition, The Principals' Partnership maintains a public Web site (www.principalspartnership.com) featuring research briefs and case studies useful to all educators. It is estimated the Principals' Partnership, through the participating principals, will reach approximately 71,000 teachers and 1 million students in the 2008-09 school year.