Success Breeds Success
September 15, 2008
A new school year has begun and new successes are occurring on a daily rate. Although we are already into our new school year, I wanted to take a few minutes to reflect upon some accomplishments from our previous year and to stress upon everyone how important it is to build upon our past successes. I firmly believe that success breeds success.
Let’s start from an academic standpoint. In the spring of 2008 our district had 125 of 131 students score at the meeting standards level or above on the state math assessment. This was 95.4% of our possible students and the state target is 64.6%.
In reading we had 126 of 131 at the meeting standards level or above and this computes to 96.2%. The state target was 72%. These are phenomenal statistics that our district staff, students, parents, and patrons should be very proud of. The results are not official yet, but we feel that this still warrants your acknowledgement. I will share that the science and social studies statistics are not available yet.
These statistics are easy to see and celebrate, but our staffs have daily successes with students that nobody sees. Our students have a safe learning environment that allows them to thrive educationally. We have caring staffs that spend time getting to know their students and helping them to feel successes daily. We can truly feel blessed that our children have this type of learning scenario.
Next let’s consider our organizations. Our district has FFA, representing future agriculturists of America, FBLA for future business leaders, and FCCLA as family and consumer science leaders. From each of these organizations we had state placers that qualified for national competitions. FBLA and FCCLA had their National competitions this past summer and we had national placers in both. The FFA national competition is scheduled for October and our district will again have students represented in competitions. I doubt that many districts in the state or nation could brag that all three of these organizations had national qualifiers.
In sports, our district offers cross country, volleyball, football, basketball, track and golf. It is an honor to state that we again had representation in each of these areas at the state level. We had individuals represented in some while full teams honored our district through representation as well. Again, very few districts could make this statement.
How about the arts you may ask? Well, we were represented at the state level in music both vocal and instrumental. We also had qualifiers and placers at the state level in forensics. Also we had many placers at art competitions across the state. Our students thrive in these areas and enjoy the opportunities presented to them.
I think it is safe to say that our students receive a quality, well rounded education that I consider second to none. We continue to strive to give our students our very best. Our goal is to become better on a daily basis and we will work to enhance the opportunities that we give our children. Oliver Wendell Holmes once said, “The greater thing in this world is not so much where we stand as in what direction we are going.” We are definitely headed in the right direction and will continue striving for those successes.
