Superintendent’s Message: End of the School Year

Dear Parents and Community Members,

The end of the school year is exciting! We see our students graduating and moving on to new adventures and we wish them success. Graduation is a time when every employee can stop and reflect for a moment on a job well done. It’s important to take that time to think about the good things we’ve accomplished this school year, individually and as a team. However we’ll reflect for only a moment.

People often ask us what we do all summer when the students aren’t in school. They don’t realize that as one school year ends, we are purposefully preparing for the next school year. In August we’ll have a new group of ninth graders, a bit awed to be in high school; sixth grade students who may be a little overwhelmed at entering intermediate school; and, finally, our incoming kindergartners who are just starting on their grand adventure of learning. It’s imperative that each student get off to a strong start. We prepare to give them as much support as we can.

We spend our summers refining curriculum, learning new teaching methods to enable us to reach all of our students, cleaning, painting and repairing our buildings, developing new breakfast and lunch menus, new construction projects including secure entrances, geothermal heating and cooling, new roofs, and much more. We have staff working hard during the summer to offer enrichment programs to stem summer learning loss and running the Community Cafes to help ensure that children have a nutritious meal at least once a day, along with some fun activities in a safe, secure place. Summer isn’t an idle time in a school district, but we wouldn’t have it any other way.

Congratulations to the Class of 2013! Thank you to our staff for all that you do!

Sincerely,

Dr. Arthur W. Tate, Superintendent