Newsletter

There is something special about the first few days of school. After a summer of preparation, our buildings are full again, and it has been great to see students and staff back together. I had a chance to make the rounds during the first couple of days, and there was a lot of excitement across the district.

At the elementary level, there were plenty of smiles and hugs as students and families worked through those first-day nerves. At the secondary level, students were reconnecting with friends, figuring out schedules, and navigating locker combinations. There is always a little nervous energy at the start, but mostly I saw students who were excited to be back and staff who were genuinely happy to see them.

Athletics and activities are also getting underway, and there is still time for students at the middle and high school levels to get involved. Cross country, in particular, is always happy to welcome more runners. You do not have to be an experienced runner. Sometimes joining a team is simply a chance to try something new, be active, and spend time with friends.

A tremendous amount of work goes into getting ready for the first day of school. Throughout the summer, our custodial and maintenance teams cleaned, repaired, moved furniture, tackled projects, and prepared our buildings. Teachers and staff set up classrooms, prepared lessons, worked through schedules, welcomed new colleagues, and planned carefully for those first days. Our office staff and administrators were busy enrolling students, answering family questions, planning, and taking care of the countless details that make opening day possible.

We hope students and families felt that preparation when they walked through our doors. More importantly, we hope they felt welcomed, supported, and excited about the year ahead. A huge thank you to everyone who helped us get here. It is great to have our students back!

We are also nearly finished with our door hardware and badge-reader project. Staff can now use their ID badges to access buildings, which is certainly more convenient, but the much bigger improvement is safety.

Our schools can now be locked down with the push of a button from the main office. That is a significant improvement to our safety systems and gives staff the ability to secure a building quickly in an emergency. Nearly all of the identified doors are complete, with just a few final pieces remaining.

There is still a long way to go on our larger construction projects, but we continue to make steady progress. We appreciate the staff, community members and project partners helping move this work forward.