SMS Principal Blog

"When you take care of yourself, you're a better person for others. When you feel good about yourself, you treat others better. " -Solange Knowles I was reminded this morning, as I almost slid through a stop sign, that in spite of some mild weather last week, we are likely several weeks away from the end of winter. This realization kind of bummed me out, to be honest. I had already let my mind turn toward thoughts of spring activities and getting back out into the fresh air, but this morning I'm reminded that it is still January. These thoughts let me to other thoughts about how quickly January has gone. Really, as we look ahead to parent teacher conferences and then PARCC followed by Spring Break, this whole semester is likely to fly by, and we will be enjoying those warm spring days before we know it, but his week is all about heart health, and I know winter is a time where it is easy to fall into some bad habits, so much like flight attendents remind us ...

“If you are always trying to be normal, you will never know how amazing you can be.”  ― Maya Angelou It has been quite awhile since we have had a "normal" week at Sullivan Middle School. In fact, through the first half of the year, we've had very few "normal" weeks. Between testing, holidays, parent/teacher conferences, snow days, ice days, cold days, and the myriad of other random things that knock our schedule out of whack, it is rare for us to have a five day week of pure instructional time.  But here's the deal: We are a middle school. There is nothing normal about middle school. Our kids are in the most awkward, in-between time in their lives, and for many of them, being "weird" or "totally random" is a badge of honor. How great is that? The thing that I have come to love the most about working in a middle school is how not normal it is. I love that we can relate to our kids like miniature adults but that I also see them s...

“Many of the things you can count, don't count. Many of the things you can't count really count.” -Albert Einstein Last weekend, I read this year's One Book, One Sullivan selection, The Bitter Side of Sweet , and I was struck by the recurring sentiment of only counting the things that matter. This week, we will be administering the MAP test to our students. I want to make it very clear that the data we will get from these tests is helpful for the purpose of evaluating our curriculum. It is good data to use to inform some of our decision making, but by no means do I put these test scores near the top of the things that matter in regards to what our teachers do every day.  Much more important to me are the number of students who count one of our teachers as the most influential person in their life, who approach me in the hallway upset and give me the name of a teacher as the person they'd most like to speak with about whatever it is that has them in tears, who...