Editor's note: You never get a second chance to make a good first impression 

A single phrase stands out from the blur of my first day as a teacher in my native upstate New York. It was an in-service day, a chance to rally the staff before the K-12 school’s hallways would fill with students. The auditorium easily accommodated all of us—four dozen or so teachers and the administrative, counseling, cafeteria, maintenance and assorted other staff members responsible for some 350 students in the tiny district.

The superintendent took the stage and, after a few pleasantries, came to his point: You never get a second chance to make a good first impression. It was an appropriate reminder on the eve of the first day of school, but it resonated in every fiber of my being for quite another reason—namely, that I was in that heightened state of perception that comes with abject terror. What in the world was I doing there? I wondered. I hadn’t been in a classroom in more than a year, and it was closer to a year and a half since I’d finished my student teaching. (After finishing up the rest of my coursework, I’d taken time off to travel, complete an independent study on Dickens and contemplate my future.) I didn’t even live in the East anymore; I heard about the job—teaching English to seventh- and eighth-graders—during a visit home from California, where my English degree and I had been waiting for some transformative lightning to strike. It turned out that lightning was rare in sunny California, so I interviewed for the post and took it when it was offered to me.

I spent the first six weeks feeling like I’d been dropped 20 feet underwater: under pressure, unable to breathe and desperate to claw my way back to the surface. Conditions improved as the year wound on, of course. The high school English teacher and I talked shop occasionally. The principal observed one of my classes, the superintendent another, and I think they left memos in my mailbox afterward. But that was pretty much the extent of my on-the-job professional development. Mercifully, the year drew to a close and I found another position that kept me in education but got me out of the classroom.

Years later, after I’d gone on to work as a writer and editor and my career path brought me to CSBA, I was amazed to learn what professional development resources are available to teachers, administrators and other staffers here in California today. The challenge, as staff writer Marsha Boutelle reports in “Professional development: Gearing up for effective teamwork,” is to identify—and pay for—training opportunities to help faculty and staff achieve the continuous improvement that’s needed to give our children the services they need to succeed.

“The board can’t ask for staff development without ensuring that resources are available to make that development happen,” Barbara Pennington, board president of Walnut Creek School District, told Marsha. “We do that through our strategic plan, which is revisited at least annually by a broad-based group of community members, certificated and classified staff, administrators, union leadership and parents.”

“Staff development is the lifeblood of our pathway to excellence,” said Ramona Unified School District Superintendent Pete Schiff. “It helps keep our people on the cutting edge; it helps keep that excitement.”

Folks involved in rural schools might feel closer to the chopping block than the cutting edge. In Maine, politicians are working to consolidate 290 school districts into just 80 or so that each must have at least 2,500 students. My little upstate New York district wouldn’t make the cut—I doubt there were that many students in the entire county. Many districts here would be at risk, too.

More than half of California’s school districts are classified as rural, staff writer Carol Brydolf reports in “Trouble in paradise: Rural schools struggle for survival.” The remote, sparsely populated settings that define those schools complicate the education of the more than 300,000 California children enrolled there, but there’s one obstacle to which everyone involved in public schools anywhere can relate.

“I hate to say we need more money,” Michael Michelon, superintendent of schools in several Siskiyou County school districts, told Carol, “because that’s what everyone says. But funding continues to be a huge problem. We do face unique challenges that others don’t face because of where we live, but our kids deserve the same level of services as children in any other district.”

Money is an essential need that’s shared by one-room schoolhouses, modern suburban campuses and schools in the heart of California’s cities. CSBA Executive Director Scott P. Plotkin mulls the prospects for adequate school funding and other issues in the upcoming “Year of Education,” while CSBA President-elect Paul H. Chatman talks about those and other topics in a wide-ranging interview. And we have a special guest columnist this month: Former school board member and current state Sen. Joe Simitian shares a story in which board members have a vested interest.

There’s more online—more than ever, in fact, now that our redesigned Web site is up and running. Check it out at www.csba.org, and thanks for reading!

Brian Taylor (btaylor@csba.org) is the managing editor of California Schools.