[WSCSS] A Fond Farewell

[Caleb Perkins]

To Washington State's Social Studies Community:

I am writing to let you know that I am leaving my position as the
state's social studies and international education supervisor. After six
years with the state superintendent's office, I have accepted a position
with the New York City Department of Education and will begin this new
job in July. I hope you realize how grateful I am to have had the chance
to work with you on the ever-challenging, ever-inspiring task of
ensuring all students in our state have meaningful opportunities to
become engaged, informed, citizens. You were so welcoming to me when I
first took this position in 2003 and I will always feel indebted for all
the help you have given me.

At the same time, I remain optimistic, even excited about the future of
social studies education in Washington. Together, we have developed a
focused set of standards (the GLEs) and built a performance assessment
system (the CBAs, of course) that districts are implementing across the
state to ensure students are meeting these standards in authentic ways.
The strength of this system has always been educators' efforts at the
local level and I am confident that these efforts will continue and even
expand. Moreover, I look forward to applying the experiences I have had
in Washington to New York City. Part of my new job will be to take what
we have learned from the CBAs here and use these lessons to improve upon
the assessment and accountability systems there.

My confidence in the future of this work in Washington also comes from
OSPI's commitment both to support the implementation of the CBAs and to
hire a new program supervisor for social studies and international
education as soon as possible. With regards to the latter, the position
was just posted (www.k12.wa.us/employment) and we plan to begin
screening applications on June 12th so that we can schedule interviews
for June 18th or 19th. I hope some of our best educators will consider
applying. 

So, let me conclude for now by reiterating my gratitude. You have been
great colleagues and friends and I will miss our conversations. Please
do keep in touch with me regarding what is happening in Washington in
the months and years to come (CalebPerkins at yahoo.com). Although I have
lived here for less than eight years, I believe that I will always feel
connected to this part of the country. I look forward to reconnecting
during one of many visits back to the Northwest.

Sincerely,
Caleb

 

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