“Without a sense of caring, there can be no sense of community.” ~Anthony J. D’Angelo
Week 1 in Review
Super start! Ha! Alliteration already. You have to enjoy that for at least one minor magical moment. Truthfully though, it really was a wonderful week. Thank you to everyone for starting strong. Every weekend, I spend a significant amount of time thinking about the week that has passed. As I was doing laundry, I noticed the CARE label on one of the clothing items, and it made me think about all the correlations between those labels and what we do to CARE for our school. Sometimes, I just wish those CARE labels were posted everywhere in our school as quick reminders of how to take care of everything. I Googled “Care Instructions,” and that search took me to the Textiles Affairs site where their title page said:
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I chuckled as I starting thinking of the symbols and all the parallels they offered in our work place. I think those will provide perfect bullets for this post.
I appreciate everyone’s cooperation with the field house construction and parking issues. Please pass on to your students how their understanding and cooperation as a part of our school community made what could have been a rough start very smooth because they cared for what Benton was trying to achieve.
I also appreciate your efforts to care for each other during our first days of school. I saw teachers making sure they made it to the hallways to help supervise during passing periods. I also heard from several of you ways that other staff members have taken the time to care of each other. I want to remind everyone that as you continue to support each other through your random acts of kindness, words of encouragement, hugs as you pass by, it all adds up to make a big difference in how we feel about each other and our work day.
Great job on your department JEPD and a huge shout out to our Instructional Coach Amy Fowler for providing you the information to get started on data teams for this year. She worked hard to get the information delivery succinct for everyone. We are working on the data teams courses and I will have those posted under the Data Teams section in Departments on our Schoolwires site.
Another shout out to everyone for getting those class changes in and especially to our counselors for going through the massive number of requests for change. Please share with your students that just because they make a request, it doesn’t mean they will get it. They must meet our stated, established criteria for change. We are still making changes in the master schedule to accommodate our students’ needs, and we hope to have your classes within reasonable sizes by the end of this week. I hope you will smile gently when you know that reasonable to you is not necessarily what DESE thinks it is.
Week 2: A Look Ahead
This week looks pretty standard from the start. There will not be a lot of disruptions although we do have several activities I will remind you about. One request I have for you to consider this week in our focus to CARE is that you call at least one parent. Call to say how well the student is doing. Call to share that your student has missed class and you were concerned. Call to remind a student to make up a test or assignment. Call to make that connection with a parent that is a deposit in the bank for a relationship bond you know you will need in the near future. If all staff members make one call, then 100 contacts will be made. Make this above what you would do already. Make this special call to make a difference beyond what is good. Jim Collins reminds us with his book that good is the enemy of great. This week, let’s pick parent contact as a way to be great at Benton and show our CARdinal Excellence.
Events this week:
Tuesday – Fall Pep Assembly Planning Meeting, 7:00 – 7:30 a.m. in Room 106
Wednesday – Benton Leadership Team Meeting, 7:00 a.m. in Room 108; Freshmen will receive their laptops in CAMP.
Thursday – Tornado Drill @ 9:20 (Mr. McCoy will send out additional instructions if needed)
Friday – Pep Assembly Schedule – Football Team Intro/first home game
Monday, Sept 3 – NO SCHOOL/Labor Day
Wednesday, Sept 5 – JEPD White Postponed/Rescheduled for Sept 13
Textile Symbols from textileaffairs.com. “Handle with care” available on Flickr by Victor Hertz