• SUPERINTENDENT ARKANOFF LEADERSHIP VISION
     
    My vision for the Center Grove Community School Corporation is to be a student-centered, highly-effective, educational environment where everyone focuses on excellence and where respect, fairness, transparency, confidentiality, and shared governance are a part of every aspect of the organization.
     
    Respect. I believe everyone should be treated with respect. An organization develops its reputation by how it demonstrates respect for all stakeholders. Staff, parents, and students are the most important part of each and every aspect of what we do as a school district. Thousands of interactions occur daily within the district. Even in the most difficult interaction we will always display respect with all involved.

    Fairness. Fairness is my guiding decision-making principle. Truly, it’s a social justice issue. At our core, we simply want everyone to be treated fairly. In every decision I make, I will ask others and myself if the decision is consistent with basic standards of fairness.

    Transparency. Fairness often begins with a transparent, well-described process for making a decision or resolving an issue — a process that everyone can understand. Some decisions themselves may be unexpected, but there should be no surprises about how decisions get made; and everyone in our community deserves to understand why decisions are made in a particular way.
     
    Confidentiality. I don’t believe in secrets. I do believe very strongly in honoring commitments to confidentiality. Keeping secrets means not revealing information that should be public. Respecting confidentiality means keeping personal information — such as an individual’s personnel records, medical records, and other privileged information — private. Indeed, there is much information that cannot be divulged by law or by policy. So while our decision-making process needs to be transparent, I won’t violate anyone’s confidentiality for any reason. As a leader, a teacher, and an educational researcher I know how essential it is to respect everyone’s privacy.
     
    Shared Governance. We will practice shared governance at Center Grove — many different groups have input into most of our decisions: students, faculty, staff, trustees, alumni, and the larger school community.The great advantage of shared governance is that it promotes the inclusion of a rich body of perspectives into decisions. This broad input can greatly improve decisions which are made, but there still needs to be a person or group whom ultimately make the final decisions. Shared governance is not easy, and what it means is often misunderstood. Shared governance does not mean that decisions are ultimately made by popular vote — no complex organization can run that way.I see a large part of my job as taking in and thinking about a wide range of perspectives on important school decisions. It means that a big part of my job is to listen — to listen hard and to listen well — to a variety of different perspectives, and then be certain that we are making the best decision we can. I hope that even in those situations when the final decision is not the choice of everyone in our community, everyone will feel that he or she understands the final decision and its reasons and, perhaps most importantly, has had an opportunity to participate in the process.
     
    Finally, I believe that good leaders have high expectations for themselves and for those they serve.
    I hold those I serve and myself to the following Twelve Expectations:

    1. Be Child-Centered
    2. Be Respectful
    3. Be Professional
    4. Be Enthusiastic 
    5. Be Visible 
    6. Be Collaborative
    7. Be a Communicator
    8. Be Forgiving 
    9. Be Positive 
    10. Be Proactive 
    11. Be a Positive Role Model 
    12. Be Organized