Again, this year, our committee volunteers have a line up of impressive sessions designed to provide you with information on the latest innovations, networking and information sharing spanning all areas of School Business.

Have you recently implemented a Best Practice that is innovative and significantly improves efficiency? If so, you are eligible for the Brice and Shirley Phillips Best Practice Award. One of the objectives of ASBO MD/DC is the promulgation of efficiency in business methods and practices. The Brice and Shirley Phillips Award is a way for our organization to not only recognize innovative achievements of its members, but to make known and teach those Best Practices publicly. You can apply for the Best Practice Award by completing the application which can be found on the ASBO MD/DC website in the Awards section. Once completed, the application should be sent to You can apply for the Best Practice Award by completing the application which can be found on the ASBO MD/DC website in the Awards section. Once completed, the application should be sent to jeff.laporta@hcps.org before October 5, 2014. The winner will be announced at the Fall Conference on November 7th. The winner receives a scholarship to attend the Spring Conference, hotel accommodation at the Spring Conference, scholarship money for ASBO MD/DC professional development opportunities and an invitation to present your best practice at the Spring Conference. This award is generously sponsored by Johnson Controls.

The Disctrict of Columbia Public School System has a position opening in the Office of the Deputy Chancellor for Operations for: Coordinator, Purchase CardOffice

ASBO wants to meet them! Share with your colleagues the benefits of being a member of ASBO. From the conferences where members meet twice per year to network and gain knowledge, to the many workshops held each year, more than 1200 school and business professionals benefit each year from their membership in the Association of School Business Officials of Maryland and the District of Columbia. Let us know who your friends are - contact your liaison or visit our website at htt://asbo.org/join.php

"...left to themselves, things tend to go from bad to worse"

-- Murphy's Law, Corollary #5

If you haven't already registered, don't miss this workshop on September 12.

B.I.G. Ideas Forum - Schedule

Save the Date for the ASBO MD&DC 2014 Annual Fall Conference! November 7, 2014 at the Maritime Institute

Congratulations Richard L. Gay, CPPO, RSBO AND Team Procurement! For the tenth year in a row! Recipients of the prestigious 19th Annual Achievement of Excellence in Procurement Award (AEP) award for 2014 from the National Procurement Institute (NPI). The AEP Award is earned by public and non-profit organizations that obtain a high application score based on standardized criteria. The judging criteria are: Innovation, Professionalism, E-Procurement, Productivity, and Leadership This program encourages the development of excellence as well as continued organizational improvement to earn the award annually. For 2014, there were 199 successful applicants, including 44 counties, 69 cities, 23 higher education agencies, 22 school districts, 33 special districts, and 8 state agencies. In addition to NPI, the Achievement of Excellence in Procurement Award is sponsored by the California Association of Public Procurement Officials (CAPPO), Florida Association of Public Procurement Officials (FAPPO), the Institute for Supply Management (ISM), NIGP: The Institute for Public Procurement, the National Association of State Procurement Officials (NASPO), the National Association of Educational Procurement (NAEP), the Texas Public Purchasing Association (TxPPA) and The Canadian Public Procurement Council/Conseil canadien des marchés publics (CPPC-CCMP).

LEONARDTOWN, MD – The Board of Education of St. Mary’s County has selected Mr. James Scott Smith as the Interim Superintendent of Schools. The announcement came during the Board’s regularly scheduled meeting held today. As the Interim Superintendent, Mr. Smith will play a lead role in the educational leadership and business affairs for the school system. Dr. Martirano will continue as superintendent until mid-September. Mr. Smith’s appointment will not start until mid-September.

St. Mary’s County Public Schools Superintendent of Schools, Dr. Michael J. Martirano, announced the administrative appointment made by the Board of Education at its meeting of July 15, 2014. The Board appointed Mr. David Howard as Director of Information Technology Services in the Department of Information Technology Services. Mr. Howard was previously serving as the Director of Information Technology Services with the College of Southern Maryland. He holds both a Bachelor’s degree and a Master’s degree from University of Maryland University College. The appointment was effective on August 11, 2014.

Frederick County Public Schools has named Dr. Michael Markoe the school system’s new deputy superintendent, effective August 1, 2014. Dr. Markoe fills the vacancy previously held by Dr. Steve Lockard.

The Frederick County Public Schools Maintenance and Operations Department is one-half of the way towards having twenty team members attain the International Facility Management Association’s (IFMA) Facility Management Professional (FMP) credential. The FMP designation is a knowledge-based credential for facility management (FM) professionals looking to increase their depth-of-knowledge in the core FM topics deemed critical by employers and the FM industry. By completing four classroom sessions, and associated knowledge-based assessment in all four subject areas (i.e., Operations and Maintenance, Project Management, Finance and Business, and Leadership and Strategy), our team will improve their knowledge and skills, and gain enhanced professional stature in the FM community. The FMP credential is typically pursued by individuals or select groups within an organization. FCPS was told by IFMA that they are the first group of this size to pursue this professional credential.

Bill Meekins CPPB, CPCP, Buyer Specialist, Procurement Card Administrator, Frederick County Public Schools, will give a presentation on the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) and how it could affect your procurement card program at the ASBO MD/DC Fall Conference this year. The OFAC administers and enforces economic and trade sanctions. Financial institutions must create compliance programs to meet OFAC requirements. This includes the creation of new accounts, including credit cards. This presentation will help attendees understand the basics of OFAC, discover the responsibilities of financial institutions, and determine how OFAC may affect their procurement card program.

Welcome to Ms. Leisl Ashby, AIA, CCS, NCARB, the New Facilities Planner & Licensed Architect for Queen Anne's County Public Schools.

ASBOI School Business Minute: We are witnessing game-changing forces that will radically affect education and its provision, delivery, work, and workforce, as well as the student experience, schooling outcomes, and education business. We need to identify these changes at all levels and in all sectors of education, understand their implications, and address them.

If, as someone working on the business side of education, you are actively using your unique knowledge of the finance and operations to shape the way your school system uses resources for the children you serve, then you are a high-performing school business official. It’s the epitome of school business. It’s the intersection where a well-run business meets an enterprise whose product is the development of young minds and educated citizens. To demonstrate that this process is happening, it seems you would need a well-done strategic plan, one with limited, specific, and measurable goals and objectives, to be fully integrated with an expertly created budget that demonstrates how decisions were made to allocate resources to where they are needed most. By Ron Skinner posted Tue, May 20, 2014 11:41 AM

In a meeting with The Sun Editorial Board, new Baltimore City Schools CEO Dr. Gregory Thornton discusses the system's expenses in the past for catered meetings and private drivers.

Technology such as tablets will be emphasized this year in classroom Last year, the Common Core was debated by everyone from conservative talk show hosts to parents flooding state capitals, and teachers rebelled against a new evaluation system they believe is unfair Now it's year two for the phase-in of controversial education reforms. And while students returning to Maryland classrooms this week may be blissfully unaware of the debate, they will see more changes. First, they can forget about the MSA (Maryland School Assessment) and learn the name for new state tests: PARCC, or Partnership for Assessment for Readiness for College and Careers.

Effective communicators plan their presentations and hone their skills at every turn.

In this article by Brian N. Moore, RSBS in the July/August issue of school business daily, you can create a district culture that encourages school officials

In this article by Charles J. Russo, J.D., Ed.D, see what steps education leaders can take to help

Code-named Threshold, Windows 9 is set to bring a major change in terms of design and features compared to Windows 8, which was launched less than two years ago. According to sources within the company, speaking to well-known Microsoft-watcher Tom Warren at The Verge, the company is planning to hold a media event on Sept. 30 to unveil the new software, though that date could change in the coming weeks. David Gilbert, IB Times Aug 21, 2014

The latest scoop in the Microsoft world is that Windows 9, the follow-up to the company’s fairly unpopular Windows 8 operating system, will be unveiled at the end of September. The drastic changes that Windows 8 brought to Microsoft’s OS — a confusing new system of tiles on the home screen, the removal of the Start button, a two-faced system that split itself between a new, touch-friendly interface and the more familiar mouse-and-keyboard Windows of old — were met with customer ire. Those complaints felt validated after the company backpedaled on the removal of the popular desktop Start button, announcing that it would soon return. Daniel Bean Editorial Assistant

Email is out of control. For many of us in the working world, there’s just too much of it. Email has become a source of anxiety, a measurement of our failure to keep up. David Pogue, Tech columnist, Yahoo; PBS NOVA host has tips and suggestions to help manage your inbox, and other email functions.

Lousy teams are frustrating, unproductive, and lack focus. Enhance your team's dynamics with these 10 tips; 1. Set Goals and celebrate accomplishments regularly. 2. Encourage transparency. 3. Urge everyone to participate. 4. Recognize individual differences as a strength 5. If you disagree, communicate with respect. 6. Encourage accountability and lead by example 7. Embrace and communicate your team's mission to foster group unity. 8. Ask questions before drawing conclusions. 9. Be flexible and receptive to new ideas 10. Ensure team members know their tasks/deadlines. Adapted from "10 Practical Ways to Enhance Team Dynamics" by Dan Rockwell, Leadership Freak Blog, leader shipfreak.wordpress.com March 2014.

Data Brief: Who Attends Maryland’s Reward, Focus, and Priority Schools? (8.28.14) In 2012, Maryland redesigned its school accountability system and adopted the School Progress Index (SPI) to measure school performance. This index is used to identify Reward, Focus, or Priority schools. In this data brief, we examine the geographic and demographic characteristics of schools identified as needing improvement under this new system and show where these schools are located. We find that schools identified as low performing (Focus and Priority) enroll predominately minority and low-income students. We discuss the policy implications of this new system. Data Brief: Maryland’s Reward, Focus, and Priority Schools.

Cardinal Community School District officials say the goal is to transform school buses into locations for learning, by adding wireless Internet and bringing focus to educational apps. BY MARK NEWMAN, MCCLATCHY NEWS SERVICE / AUGUST 5, 2014 for Government Technology

A report by Futuresource Consulting shows that notebook computers have returned to favor in school purchases of computing hardware. Tablets accounted for 41.6% of computing-device sales in the U.S. K-12 education market in the second quarter, with various types of notebooks making up the majority 58.4%. By Patrick Seitz for Tech News and Commentary-Investors Business Daily

IMMEDIATE SAVINGS ON FOOD EXPENDITURES WITH FIRM FIXED FEE-PER-CASE PRICING Today, schools are challenged with tighter budgets, limited resources and high expectations to provide healthier meals. We are excited to announce that Premier has been awarded a three-year contract to provide K-12 Food Products and Distribution through U.S. Communities. This new contract will help K-12 schools manage supplier relationships, drive operational efficiency and save money with the firm fee-per-case pricing structure. This exclusive contract was awarded through a competitive solicitation process conducted by lead public agency Washington County Public Schools, Maryland. This contract enables school organizations immediate access to Premier’s comprehensive portfolio of contracted manufacturer agreements (CMAs) delivered in partnership with their broad line distributor, US Foods.

How can facility owners ensure that their workers’ safety is protected? by Stephen Devon, PE, LEED AP, CxA, MRF Engineering