Making the Dream Work

"Unity is Strength... when there is teamwork and collaboration, wonderful things can be achieved."
-Mattie Stepanek

One of the coolest things about my job is the ability to have a front row seat to the kinds of things most people never get to see happening in our schools. Whether that is a teacher working one-on-one with a student until they get the correct value for x, a social worker helping a student through a traumatic event, or a team of teachers collaborating to find the best way to accomplish multiple tasks at once; I am never at a loss for positive things to say about our building and the people in it.

With that being said, I want to thank all of you for your efforts to make this past Friday a success. What started out as the seed of an idea by one teacher blossomed into a pretty robust experience for our students. In one day, thanks to your efforts, these things were able to be accomplished: hundreds of pages read, a yet unknown number of missing assignments completed, the contributions and struggles of African Americans were celebrated, and funds were raised for the American Heart Association. 

I look forward to this next part of the school year as we begin to plan ahead for next year. This has been an incredibly challenging school year on a number of fronts, and I want you to know that I'm feeling it with you. The myriad of changes we have implemented have challenged my still developing skills as building leader, and I have taken many lessons from my shortcomings. I appreciate all of your support throughout this process. I hope that you are able to see growth in me as we strive to see growth in our students and as I work to help support you in your growth as professionals. I don't anticipate next year looking entirely like this year. Some of the plans we had for this year worked out better than I could have hoped. The early results of our expanded math instruction are promising, but I know we still have work to do to reach our maximum potential for that time. I want to be a part of that. Our RtI process is still evolving. We made a dramatic change this year, and I think we learned a lot about what doesn't work so well. I look forward to brainstorming with you for ideas for improvement for next year as well as things we could change within the framework we have in place for the remainder of this year. 

In my time in education, I have never been a part of a building that has undergone such a radical transformation all at once, and while there are plenty of things I would love to have a mulligan on, I couldn't be more proud of the work all of you have done to work together for our students. 


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