School Is Open!

You know something is different in our small communities when you experience a traffic jam on a street that is normally calm and quiet at 7:45 am. Today each of our High Schools opened for the 2011-12 school year. As parents and students made their way to their local high school, the streets filled with anticipation and excitement. This year we will graduate the class of 2012. Thank you to our staff, students, parents, and community members for all your support and encouragement during our opening staff development work and planning. We are proud of our communities and we look forward to an outstanding school year.

This year as we work with each of our communities to forge new partnerships and work to develop new and exciting learning experiences for our students, we must work with a sense of urgency. We must provide our students with the skills and tools that they will need to face and deal with the changes in our society and communities that are occurring at a rapid pace. Working together we can build a sustainable educational and economic foundation for our schools and communities and provide our students with the experiences and support necessary to become citizens of our communities and our global society.

The educational experience must look and feel different for our students. We must lead the change by being willing to learn and be the seekers of new experiences for our students and ourselves.

We are going to continue to develop our organizational values. Several that I recognize are going to be important to embrace as we move forward include (many of these are taken form Zappos.com but I believe they are relevant to our educational organization):

1. Deliver WOW experiences for all students
2. Develop partnerships that support the learning experience
3. Embrace and drive change
4. Be adventurous, creative, and open-minded
5. Pursue growth and learning
6. Build open and honest relationships with communication
7. Build a positive team and family spirit
8. Do more with less
9. Be passionate and determined
10. Be humble


Have a great year.
Sincerely,
Mike Matheson