About Andrew Jordan

How to Play a Game of 21

Andrew “Andy” Jordan is the principal of Donovan High School in Donovan, Illinois, a role that involves oversight of 175 students, as well as the school’s faculty and staff. He previously served as the principal of West Carroll Primary School in Savanna. When he is not working to improve the school’s test scores and overall academic performance, Andrew Jordan spends time pursuing a doctoral degree in education and staying active through golf and basketball.

Recreational basketball players who lack the numbers needed for a proper game can still enjoy a full-body workout through a basketball-related game like 21. In a sense, games of 21 are played as traditional half-court basketball games. The key exception is that players are competing as individuals, rather than as members of a team.

To start the game or reset play, an individual takes a shot from distance, usually around or beyond the three-point line. The shot must contact the rim but not pass through the basket. At this point, players on the court can fight for the rebound and go about scoring as normal. Baskets made from the field count as one point, while shots made from beyond the arc are worth two points.

Following a make, the shooter steps up to the free line and is given up to three free throws, assuming he or she makes each attempt. Each made free throw counts as one point. A player who makes all three baskets not only finishes the play with up to five points, but also starts the next play with the ball at the top of the key.

As one might assume, players win the game by scoring 21 points. However, they must score exactly 21 points. For example, if a player with 20 points makes a three-point shot attempt (earning two points), they reach 22 points and are penalized by dropping back down to 11 points.

How to Establish Core Values for a School

With experience primarily working in Savanna, Illinois, and nearby areas, Andrew “Andy” Jordan is the principal of Donovan High School. He previously served as the principal of West Carroll Primary School, where he incorporated teacher peer observations to improve pedagogy. One issue that Andrew Jordan is passionate about is improving school cultures.

Creating a more positive school culture first entails collecting data on how students, staff, and parents perceive the current culture. Via well-designed surveys that give equal weight to everyone, the resultant plan can account for everyone’s needs. With this data as inspiration, school administration determines the institution’s core values by revising the preexisting mission statement to incorporate them. These new documents can inspire all involved, while also setting clear expectations for acceptable behavior.

The core values only hold meaning if students and faculty exhibit or teach them of their own volition, in a manner suited to them. To motivate students, it can help to create a mentorship program where older students pair up with younger ones to help them model and practice the values. Teachers can also benefit from the time and resources to apply the values through lesson plans or workshops. Finally, recognizing students and faculty for demonstrating the core values through events can help positively reinforce them.

For more information about Andrew Donovan’s work, please visit https://www.youtube.com/c/AndyJordanPrincipal.

What Is Freemasonry?

Andrew Jordan is the principal of Donovan High School in Illinois, where he is looking to improve test scores for 175 6th-12th grade students under his management. Outside of his work in education, Andrew Jordan is involved with his local Freemason society.

Freemasonry is often misconstrued as a variety of things that it is not, such as being a religious order or being related to the Illuminati. In reality, the Freemasons are an exclusive club that is secular in nature and has no imperative to be fully confidential.

Although it is a secret society, individual members can choose to be public with their involvement if they so choose. The late Prince Phillip, former astronaut Buzz Aldrin, musician Rick Wakeman, and more are examples of public celebrity masons about their affiliation.

The point of Freemasonry is to mimic the medieval stonemasons from which it takes its name. The stonemasons of the medieval era protected their knowledge of their crafts by encoding it in a series of runes and symbols that only other masons understood, thus protecting their trade skills from outsiders. Modern masons are much the same, promising to help each other as a social network and partaking in ceremonies that both forge a social bond and create a moral framework for individual members to live by.

Donovan – Economic, Political, and Educational Statistics

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Andrew “Andy” Jordan began his educational career as a teacher and assistant principal at West Prairie High School in Sciota, Illinois. He became the principal at West Carroll Primary School, where he improved the test scores by 20 percent and drastically reduced out-of-school suspension. Now a principal of a high school, Andrew Jordan oversees Donovan High School in Donovan, Illinois.

Donovan is a village in Iroquois County named after the local Donovan family who founded it in 1872. Today, Donovan has an unemployment rate of 5.6 percent compared to the national average of 6.0 percent. However, the cost of living in Donovan is 29.9 percent lower than the national average.

As for politics, Donovan, according to the last presidential election, is mainly Republican, with 77.5 percent voting Republican. Since 2020, Donovan’s population has dropped by 40.7 percent and now boasts 279 people. Its public schools spend $11,604 per student, with 12.9 students for every teacher.

Illinois Principals Association Appoints First Black President

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The recipient of a master’s degree in educational leadership from Western Illinois University, Andrew Jordan has more than a decade of experience in the education sector as a teacher, coach, and principal. Complementing his experience, Andrew Jordan holds membership with the Illinois Principals Association (IPA).

The IPA is celebrating its 50th anniversary during the 2021-22 school year and will be led by its first-ever Black president, Dr. Marcus Belin. A member of the IPA since 2013, Dr. Belin was appointed president on July 1.

Dr. Belin serves as principal at Huntley High School and was named one of three Digital Principals of the Year by the National Association of Secondary School Principals earlier this year. He oversaw the school’s competency-based education program for remote and in-person learning and has been instrumental in tech integration to support social-emotional learning for students.

Since joining the IPA, Dr. Belin has held roles with the organization, including Central Illinois Valley Region Membership Chair and State Legislative Chairperson. He began working as a social studies teacher in 2010 and later served as assistant principal at Dunlap High School prior to joining Huntley High School. He received his doctoral degree from National Lewis University and holds a master’s degree in education administration from Bradley University.

The School Culture Funnel and How Administrator’s Create It

In 2020 if you are a school principal and you are not branding your school you are not doing your job. There are so many great things happening in our schools everyday and we need to highlight those to our school community. Here are some basic things school principals can do to self-promote their schools, according to Principal Andy Jordan.
Facebook: This is the easiest step a school administrator can do. Setup a page and make a few positive posts the first month and then hand it over to your business class or other teachers and let them highlight the positives for you.
Twitter: This is more personalized but it allows you to connect with other individuals who are more in tuned to Twitter social media and less Facebook. Make sure to follow your school’s groups twitter pages and retweet as often as possible.
YouTube: Setting up and running a school YouTube page is easy and it is a great way to broadcast your basketball and volleyball games as well as your special events such as concerts and graduation ceremonies.
Newsletters: Some schools still operate a monthly and/or a quarterly school newsletter that is mailed to residents. This is a great idea and it also reaches folks who are not on social media and who are not connected as others are.
Blogging: This could be a learning project for your high school English department and it would also tie into learning for your students. Running this blog would have to go through your teacher but it could be fun and positive. Make sure to highlight all the positive happenings at your school.
I am surprised that in 2020 many schools are still operating in the dark when it comes to social media and self-promoting their schools. School has changed tremendously in the past twenty years and it is important to highlight those changes and show the parents and school community all the fun and exciting learning that is occurring according to Principal Andy Jordan. Once you start sharing the positives and highlighting your school you will be surprised of the culture change you start seeing and the positive posts that will start happening on social media. It’s a great way to help turn your school around.
If you have any questions feel free to reach out to me on twitter @principa_andy.

How to Live Stream Basketball Games From Your Gym Written By: Principal Andy Jordan, Ed.S.

With COVID 19 restrictions schools are preparing to not allow fans and parents into their gyms for basketball and volleyball games this winter. Currently, the Illinois Department of Public Health has put a restriction of 50 people per space in Illinois Schools.

Being able to stream ballgames live is a must for school districts. Here is an easy free solution to be able to do this quickly and professionally for schools.
Meet with your technology director and see if you have security cameras setup in the gym. If you do you might have to reposition one of them so it is at half court getting the basketball court in focus. Depending on the camera already in the gym you might have to switch to a wide angle camera which will allow you to record the length of the gym. You don’t want a person holding a camera having to zoom in/out and going back and forth during the game that would be a disaster and low quality.

Your next step would be downloading the free OBS Studio software onto a computer that is at least operating on an i7 processer. Make sure that you have a plugged in internet source and that you are not connected to the wireless internet. When you are streaming you want to make sure that you are plugged in to ensure there is no lag or disruption in your internet access. If you are able to, Principal Andy Jordan recommends having a 2nd camera that is focused just on the scoreboard. The OBS Studio software will allow you to pull in both camera’s off of their IP address and you can overlay the scoreboard camera on top of the feed which will allow you to watch the game and see the scoreboard at the same time.

Setup a personal YouTube account to stream your games from. If you use a school account you will run into issues if you are at a lower level and are broadcasting children over a school account. Make sure to make your YouTube channel look like your school channel and easy to find. You should do a test run before an actual game, but you should be able to stream the video from your OBS Studio software directly to your YouTube channel. Just an FYI in order to do a live YouTube stream you must verify your channel which takes up to 24 hours.
If you have any questions feel free to reach out to me on twitter @principa_andy or by email at principalandyjordan@gmail.com

Illinois School Long-term Borrowing for Buildings Written By: Principal Andy Jordan, Ed.S.

Anytime that a school is seeking to do a bond it means that it is going to borrow money and go into debt. Typically, debt is considered a negative thing and if we can stay out of debt that is what we want to do. New construction would be one area that a school district might go into to debt in order to build a new school.
According to James Fritts Essentials of Illinois School Finance, “building bonds are used to fund land, building, and equipment costs for new schools, as well as alterations, additions, and repairs. They require a referendum.”
According to Principal Andy Jordan Illinois elementary and high school districts can borrow or be indebted up to 6.9% of their EAV (equalized assessed valuation) and unit districts can borrow up to 13.8% of their EAV. For example if you were a unit district and your EAV was ten million dollars you could borrow up to $1.38 million dollars.
Most schools that are looking to do a major building project should plan ahead of time and slowly start building up their operation and maintenance fund (40) to increase the amount of money they will have and lesson the burden on the tax payers. If you wanted to go for a larger project than what your borrowing capacity is you could do that and that is where the building bonds come into play.
In order to get a building bond passed you need to put it before the voters and they need to approve it through a referendum. Highlighting some of the negatives of what would happen if they don’t approve it and also highlighting the positives with pictures of what will happen if they approve it would be your best route to go. Some school districts hire a firm to promote the information of the building bond referendum which is legal as long as they are not using school funds to support one side of the cause. Superintendents that go out into the community and present the referendum and listen to the community tend to see more success with passing a referendum.
Passing a bond is tough. I have been fortunate enough to pass a 50 cent increase of the Ed Fund through my experience and it is no easy task. If you have any questions feel free to reach out to me on twitter @principa_andy or by email at principalandyjordan@gmail.com

Illinois School Long-term Borrowing for Buildings

Written By: Principal Andy Jordan, Ed.S.

According to James Fritts Essentials of Illinois School Finance, “building bonds are used to fund land, building, and equipment costs for new schools, as well as alterations, additions, and repairs. They require a referendum.”

According to Principal Andy Jordan Illinois elementary and high school districts can borrow or be indebted up to 6.9% of their EAV (equalized assessed valuation) and unit districts can borrow up to 13.8% of their EAV. For example if you were a unit district and your EAV was ten million dollars you could borrow up to $1.38 million dollars.

Most schools that are looking to do a major building project should plan ahead of time and slowly start building up their operation and maintenance fund (40) to increase the amount of money they will have and lesson the burden on the tax payers. If you wanted to go for a larger project than what your borrowing capacity is you could do that and that is where the building bonds come into play.

In order to get a building bond passed you need to put it before the voters and they need to approve it through a referendum. Highlighting some of the negatives of what would happen if they don’t approve it and also highlighting the positives with pictures of what will happen if they approve it would be your best route to go. Some school districts hire a firm to promote the information of the building bond referendum which is legal as long as they are not using school funds to support one side of the cause. Superintendents that go out into the community and present the referendum and listen to the community tend to see more success with passing a referendum.

Passing a bond is tough. I have been fortunate enough to pass a 50 cent increase of the Ed Fund through my experience and it is no easy task. If you have any questions feel free to reach out to me on twitter @principa_andy or by email at principalandyjordan@gmail.com