Dr. Bruce E. Daniels This is Me

Education

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1. 1. www.jonesborosun.com

   www.jonesborosun.com/archived_ - [Cached]

   Published on: 10/24/2007   Last Visited: 10/25/2007

   Blytheville Schools Superintendent Dr. Bruce Daniels noted after the meeting that many of the people who attended the presentation were impressed.
   
   "I think that it made a favorable impression on everyone," Daniels said.
   
   As for enrollment, Daniels said the new school will have approximately 100 students in the first year, with the number increasing to between 300 and 400 students in the 2009-10 school year.
   
   The superintendent said the college, along with officials at each school district, has worked to prepare an application to present to state education officials.
   
   The application will be presented to the Arkansas Department of Education early next year, Daniels said.

2. 2. Jonesboro Sun

   www.jonesborosun.com/archiveds - [Cached]

   Published on: 1/31/2006   Last Visited: 1/31/2006

   "It seems to me the system is flawed," said Dr. Bruce Daniels, Blytheville School District superintendent.

3. 3. Blytheville Courier News: News Index

   www.blythevillecn.com/articles - [Cached]

   Published on: 10/11/2004   Last Visited: 10/11/2004

   From Blytheville High School student, to teacher, to superintendent, Dr. Bruce Daniels has seen the Blytheville school system change from both sides of the desk.
   
   Daniels was born in Blytheville at what used to be
   
   Walls Hospital. He was raised on a small farm northeast of town in an area called Flat Lake. In 1952 Daniels started school at Yarbro Elementary School, which was then part of the Blytheville School District. He attended school at Yarbro through the fifth grade and then went to the sixth grade at the new Fairview Elementary School. He was in one of the first classes to attend school at Fairview. From there Daniels went to Blytheville Junior High School, which is now the Middle School, and he graduated from Blytheville High School in 1964.
   
   Daniels didn't always plan to be an educator. While attending Hendrix College in Conway, he majored in mathematics. In 1968, when he graduated from Hendrix, his college adviser encouraged him to go into teaching and he did.
   
   Daniels completed some education hours at the University of Arkansas, now known as the University of Central Arkansas, in Conway. In addition, he picked up some hours at Southern Arkansas University and performed graduate work for a couple summers in the '60s at Auburn University in Alabama.
   
   "I really intended to go in another direction for a while," Daniels said. "Math teachers were then and still are today hard to find. I had my pick of a number of places around the state to start teaching. My wife and I moved down to Camden, and I taught math at Camden High School for three years."
   
   Even though Daniels was teaching, he still didn't know if he wanted to be a teacher for his entire career. In 1971 Daniels and wife Becky moved back to Blytheville where he taught math and coached basketball at East Junior High for five years. He moved up to Blytheville High School where he also taught math and coached basketball for five years. At the same time Daniels was earning his Master's Degree in administrative certificate work at Arkansas State University.
   
   Daniels got into school administration in the 1980s. He took a job as assistant principal at Blytheville High School, a position he held for four years, before resigning in 1987. In 1987 Daniels and his family moved to Iowa, where Daniels finished his Doctorate Degree in professional studies educational administration at Iowa State University in Ames. Daniels' son, Danny, now 34 and a freelance artist in Atlanta, finished his senior year at Ames High School in Iowa.
   
   After earning his doctorate in Iowa, Daniels accepted an assistant superintendent job in Tupelo, Miss., in 1989. He held that position for five years, and his youngest son, Bryce, who is now a contractor/cabinet maker in Auburn, Ala., graduated from Tupelo High School.
   
   "There were a lot of changes going on at that time in the state of Kentucky with education reform, and it appealed to me so I applied at some places up there," Daniels said. "Then I accepted a superintendency in Marion County, Ky., in 1994. That was my first superintendency, and I was there for five years."
   
   Daniels was contacted about the superintendent's position in Blytheville in the fall of 1998. He accepted the position and moved back to Blytheville in 1999. From 1952, when Daniels started school in Blytheville, to the late '70s and '80s, when he was a teacher, coach and assistant principal in Blytheville, to today, as superintendent, Daniels has seen the Blytheville school system change in many ways.
   
   One of the most significant changes, not only in Blytheville, but across the nation, was integration of schools, which had already happened by the time Daniels moved back to Blytheville. One major change Daniels has witnessed in the community and area over the years, especially in early to mid-'70s, is a significant decrease in population.
   
   "There was a time when Blytheville school district had between 5,000 and 6,000 students K-12," Daniels said. "Today, numbers, instead of being 5,100, are probably about 3,100. So we have lost an excess of 40 percent of our total school population in the last 30 or 40 years."
   
   Daniels uses his own graduating classes of 1964 as an example. That class graduated when the community was starting to grow, and it was the first to graduate over 200 students, compared to last year's class of about 175. Daniels said the decrease in school population reflects the decline in the area's population. He can remember a time in the late '60s and early '70s when Blytheville's population was about 30,000, compared to about 18,000 today.
   
   Daniels has several goals for the district.
   
   "I would like to see a continued focus on instructional issues," Daniels said. "I have been really impressed over the last few years since I've been back that more and more each year attention is being paid to what is going on in the classroom. We can build buildings, we can implement disciplinary procedures, we can establish a uniform dress code, but the most important thing we do takes place every day in classrooms all the way from kindergarten up to 12th grade."
   
   Daniels said teachers, administrators and other staff have been working hard to improve what goes on in the classroom and will continue to do so in years to come.
   
   "One of the things, in terms of new programs, that we don't have now that could really help kids would be a comprehensive preschool program," Daniels said.
   
   Daniels knows that not every parent, teacher or administrator would agree with having a preschool program but says it's needed to prepare kids for kindergarten, where some students are ready to read, while others need to work up to that level. Some come in having already been in a structured program ready to socialize, while, for others, it's the first time they've been in a large group. Daniels feels that with a comprehensive preschool program those gaps can be narrowed, not only academically but socially, because if the gap between those students could be narrowed, more could be accomplished for the children, he said.
   
   "I have talked to parents who say, 'I can teach my kids all those things, and I don't need to send my kids to preschool,' and that's fine," Daniels said. "I don't care where they get it, but we need to do something to get those skills across to all our kids. I would like to have preschool classrooms to promote the kind of readiness our kids need when they enter kindergarten. It is something that we are going to see and would like to implement even if the state doesn't adopt it."
   
   Daniels said a preschool program will most likely not be implemented anytime soon, but it's something that will be looked at in the future.
   
   Daniels stays abreast of the decisions made by the state Legislature by serving at the state level. He is on the state Directors' Advisory Committee and one of the committees that deals with curriculum and instruction issues.
   ...
   Daniels believes the district's improvement projects will be finished in the next couple of years.
   
   As superintendent Daniels doesn't really have an average day. There are a lot of things that pop up he has to deal with, like making quick decisions and answering parents', teachers' and administrators' questions. He also spends a lot of time in meetings, some one-on-one and some in small groups.
   
   "I guess on a typical day one of my regrets that I have is that I do get tied here in the office more than I like because I would like to spend more time visiting classes and visiting schools," Daniels said.
   
   Daniels keeps up with the day-to-day operations of the district and the district's $18 to $20 million budget. He and other administrators continue to work in the summer.
   
   "One of the frustrations educators have is that we don't ever get finished," Daniels said. "If you walk into a school in the summer obviously the classrooms are empty, but if you go into the offices, administrators, custodians and maintenance people are working to get ready for next year. School gets out the last of May, and we start in the middle of August. We spend that 10 weeks reaching closure to one school year and getting ready to start another one."
   
   Daniels said administrators are presently planning projects for next summer to get ready for the 2005-06 school year. He said although the summers are just as busy as the school year, there is still time to relax.
   
   Being a superintendent is a lot of work, but Daniels said he enjoys it. He said the best part of his job is when he sees first-hand students getting excited about learning, and he enjoys hearing about success stories involving youth in the district.
   
   "If a student can take somet