Look to the Future

We received some pretty distressing news at the beginning of the school year and it stands to reason that we would be very bummed out by it, especially with the level of success we experienced last year. To borrow a saying in sports, you are only as good as your last game. And our last game was not good. While it is understandable that we would be upset and downright depressed, we cannot begin or continue the year in such a mindset.

If you paid attention to the run the US Men's Basketball team had in the summer olympics, you would know it was called the Redeem Team. This group of players was assembled to regain the basketball dominance that the US has had on the world stage. We have to develop a similar mindset - we must regroup to regain the exceptional level we once had. We had about 44% of our students achieve a year of growth in ELA. In basketball, that would be a decent field goal percentage - scoring on 44% of your shots taken would get you a multi-million dollar contract. Unfortunately, we are dealing with students' lives and 44% will not do. To continue with the basketball analogy, we need to reach foul shot percentages - 90% and above achieving a year of growth.

Now we could spend this time sulking and licking our wounds, but where would that get us?

Now is the time for us to decide to do better. Now is the time for us to work smarter. Now is the time for us to do what we know we need to do to help our students, and ourselves, achieve at levels we know we can reach.

This journey will be difficult and we will ask everyone to work differently than they have in the past, but we will achieve and we will succeed! We did it before and we will do it again!