A Wonderful Beginning!

07 September 2012

Greetings!

What a successful week as we welcomed 7,077 students back this past Tuesday.  Thank you to all parents, staff and students on making the first week a success.  Starting early Tuesday morning over 170 bus routes began the process of picking up and dropping off our students.  Over 550 teachers spent the last week in August readying their classrooms for the big day on Tuesday. Our senior leadership team had a chance to visit every school during the first day and many since then.  After interacting with many parents and seeing students excited for the first day of school, it is clear that this district is doing amazing things.  Those initial moments of that first day are certainly intense for parents, staff and students but we did it!  Outside of some glitches with bus pick up times and a few unexpected surges in class size, the district is off to a great start.  Our transportation, food service, buildings and grounds, educational services and technology teams collaborated with principals to try to have the most successful start possible.  Congratulations to all staff, students, and parents on a wonderful beginning to the school year.

As we move into the routines of a school year, we are beginning to “operationalize” a strategic plan that focuses our work on:

• Teaching and Learning
• Communication and Community Engagement
• Staff Capacity and Capability
• Updates to a new Strategic Plan

Each board committee, department and school will be working with a continuous improvement framework that uses a systematic approach to help us go from great to greater as a school district.  Look for more details in the coming weeks on each school’s website.  Having a plan and approach to our work provides us a road map to meet the ever increasing expectations of making certain we get it right for every student, every time, all the time. 

Thanks to the entire community for making the start of the 2012-2013 school year a success.  It is an honor to be a part of the journey!  Feel free to send me an email if we can help make the school year more successful for you and your family.

Mark