Welcome to the Wolff Learning Blog!
Runners
The #WolffWay
W- Work ethic
O- Off time
L- Lead with integrity
F- Find your passion
F- Find a way
Sometimes you encounter a circumstance where all of the Wolff Way principles come together in a nice, neat package. This might involve a person, a situation, an event, or an organization.
The Scranton School District community recently participated in one of these circumstances, made possible by the Scranton High School Boys' Basketball Team Booster Club, led by Karen Battaglia and her team.
In 2015, an inspiring educator named Ron Clark wrote a book titled Move Your Bus. The central theme of the book is moving a school or organization in a positive direction. Ron uses a bus as a metaphor for the organization. The bus doesn’t have any gas, so for the bus to move, it depends on people. He describes the types of people on the bus, including drivers, riders, walkers, joggers, and runners. It’s a great book to read, and in addition to providing quality strategies, it encourages self-reflection.
Runners work hard, arrive early, stay late, and are the strongest contributors to moving the bus (your organization) forward. They see the big picture and will do just about anything to drive the organization toward positive change.
Karen Battaglia and her booster club team members are runners.
For years, the program they supported functioned with extremely limited funds, but despite these limitations, the basketball team saw tremendous success. Over the past two years, Karen and her team flipped the script. They invited the Harlem Wizards to the school for a fundraiser. The Wizards' basketball event is structured similarly to the Harlem Globetrotters but is designed to raise funds by performing in schools. Both events were tremendously successful, drawing a packed gym.
Pulling off such a successful event requires runners to make it happen. The booster club booked and managed the event, sought out sponsorships, and organized promotional days in schools with the Wizards leading fun, positive message-filled assemblies. The energy during the assemblies and the actual event was incredible—families together, happy kids, faculty members playing and officiating the game, big smiles, and boundless enthusiasm. The entire Scranton School District community benefited from these events. The Wizards did a tremendous job, and I would recommend them to any school district or organization.
The funds raised helped the Scranton High School basketball team purchase training equipment, participate in camps, and access resources previously unavailable to them.
There are a number of similar qualities between runners and the Wolff Way.
- Runners have strong work ethics. They put in significant hours to make things happen.
- Runners find off-time opportunities. They keep the bus moving, even when they aren’t moving at lightning speed.
- Runners lead with integrity. They see the big picture and always do the right thing.
- Runners have passion. They know their "why," and helping others makes them (and others!) feel alive.
- Runners find a way. Despite the large task at hand, they break it into smaller, manageable pieces and aren’t afraid to get off the porch.
The Scranton School District is fortunate to have many runners, and our most recent example is Karen Battaglia and her booster club teammates.
We thank all of you for your hard work and for being exemplary examples of living the Wolff Way.
Keep after it out there, there's no reason why you can't be next.
#wolffway
