Janet Means

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Our Vision
Balfour Elementary School will
be a school of excellence where
students are honored, learning
is valued, and our community is
dedicated to the success of all.
 

Education

• B.A. Education, Child Development, California State University, Sacramento
• M.Ed., South Carolina State College
• Ed.Admn., University of North Carolina, Charlotte

Current Job

Principal, Balfour Elementary School

Other Jobs

• Assistant Principal
• Director of Preschool Services
• Director of Adult Literacy
• Educational Consultant
• Teacher

Passions

• I love raising and training Labrador Retrievers.  We currently have one yellow Lab. I enjoy working in the garden.  I plant a small vegetable garden each spring, just a few things like tomatoes, peppers, squash and onions.  I really enjoy my herb garden, and I try to add a new herb each year.  For pure enjoyment, I try to have flowers blooming in my yard from January through November.  This is an ongoing project, and I continue to seek new perennials that will bloom year after year once they are planted.

Must Reads

• What Great Teachers Do Differently, Todd Whitaker.  This book describes the beliefs, behaviors, attitudes, and interactions of great teachers.  It focuses on the the special things that these teachers do.
• A Framework for Understanding Poverty.  Ruby K. Payne.  This is a down to earth guide to helping educators understand and help students who have been born into poverty.
• Leadership is an Art, Max DePree.  This book is a thoughtful, insightful discussion about participative management and how it can be successfully implemented in the school setting.
• What's Worth Fighting for in Your School?, Michael Fullan and Andy Hargreaves.  This book provides a specific analysis of leadership that broadens the concept and sets out corresponding guidelines for action that will enable many leaders to flouring in order to create effective schools for the future.
• Seven Simple Secrets:  What the Best Teachers Know and Do!  Annette Breaux.  This book writes in an entertaining and informative way to share practical techniques that teachers can implement immediately.

Quotes

• "What's good for the best is good for the rest."  Dr. Marion Monroe.
• "What a teacher feels and thinks about the children in front of her makes all the difference in how much those children learn."  Dr. Marion Monroe.
• "Education that consists in learning things and not the meaning of them is feeding upon the husks and not the corn."  Mark Twain. 
• "Champions are pioneers, and pioneers get shot at."  Thomas J. Peters and Robert H. Waterman, Jr., In Search of Excellence. 
• "We talk about quality of product and service.  But what about the quality of our relationships and the quality of our communications and the quality of our promises to each other?" Max DePree
• "Effective collaborations operate in the world of ideas, examining existing practices critically, seeking  better alternatives and working hard together at bringing about improvements and assessing their worth."  Michael Fullan
• "For the good of everyone, schools must contribute to helping the neediest students attain outcomes that approximate those that routinely accrue to advantaged children."  Gene I. Maeroff