Dear colleagues, parents and students:
It's great to be a "Blackhawk."
This school year holds infinite possibilities for the future of our students. I hope your summer was relaxing, enjoyable and filled with memories. The opportunity to reenergize over the summer can motivate us as we transition toward the important work we will do over the next several months. We are about to enter into a great school year filled with hope, enthusiasm and challenges. My challenge to our teachers and administrators this year is to continue establishing the mindset of "It's not where your students are academically right now; it's where we plan to take them before they leave us."
The foundation is laid and the building blocks are ready to be stacked. Over the next several months we will be building collaborators, critical thinkers, communicators and, hopefully, creators. This work is important because the 21st century is demanding that the next generation of learners be diverse, adaptable problem solvers.
I'm proud to say our school district is successful in providing those opportunities, and I wanted to share and reflect on it. Over the last four years, our district has created innovative learning opportunities with our end in mind being "College Ready-Career Ready." We have challenged administrators, teachers and all stakeholders to think outside the box by creating environments conducive for the 21st century learner. Those challenges have included changing the boring traditional form of instructional delivery to project-based learning, experiential learning and personal responsibility learning to deepen the engagement. We have created value-added programs guaranteeing a true outcome for our students. While experiencing the incredible student growth and the challenges from the world we live in, school safety has been a priority. We have added cameras, constructed safety entrance areas, and improved operational safety plans and procedures. While doing this, we have held ourselves accountable by developing building, district and community crisis teams to evaluate and develop plans for any possible tragic event. We have adapted to our school growth by using building funds wisely without increasing our millage rate. This includes remodeling existing spaces, building new wings, adding new roads, and finally, we combined resources with the City of Pea Ridge to build a new school administration/city hall complex.
We have created a state-wide conversation about college and career education. We have created a K-12 model designed to target what businesses, colleges and society are asking for. We are engaging our students in leadership principles at the primary and intermediate levels, and this year we are offering personalized learning classes for kindergarten, first and second grade students to meet their needs where they are. Our conversion-charter school, "PRMBA," has changed the culture and value of life education. When we developed this, I listened to leaders having multiple conversations. Business and industry leaders pointed to education as having weaknesses in the development of soft skills and employability skills. By combining college courses with career-specific work that has been designed by business and industry partners, all students have a true vision for their future, whether that begins after age 18 or age 30.
Finally, last May, our community highlighted the incredible behind-the-scenes work being done and invited all of us to hear and see what is happening for kids in our community.
Pea Ridge resident and lunch buddy volunteer Mrs. Pat Orrick shared with us how being a lunch buddy completes her life and places her in the presence of a child she can help. As humans, we assume sometimes that everything is taken care of, and really we are unaware of how it happened. I wanted to share some of these outstanding accomplishments because the work has been monumental and rewarding. The mission and vision of our school weighs on the continuous improvement of instruction and learning as we well know. As we move forward, the true evaluator of student success will always be student achievement.
Student achievement to me has several faces, but in the real world what is gained is what is measured. We have changed culture, we have changed delivery, and we have changed the educational conversation across our state by offering hope to all students. It is my hope that we will now combine the following ingredients -- community support, innovation, creativity and quality instruction -- to allow us to reach the outcome we are looking for.
Community on 08/10/2016