October Panther Pause
It is doubtful that anyone can deny that the fall season is certainly upon us as the beautiful colors of the season abound at every turn. Along with this seasonal change come some changes in our own school district as well. Presently, Mrs. Abigail Kutz has joined us as an interim business administrator/board secretary until such time that our new business administrator/board secretary, Mrs. Nancy DeRiso, can begin. Her contractual obligations go until December and we are looking forward to her joining our district prior to the winter break. In addition, we have recently accepted the resignations of Mrs. Cathy Redding and Mrs. Debbie Shelly. We thank them for their fine commitment to the children in Lopatcong and wish them well in their new endeavors.
At this past month’s PTA meeting we had the privilege of hearing two individuals and their messages that support all of our efforts toward character education and the new anti-bullying law that is currently in existence in New Jersey. Our own technology coordinator, Matt Shea, presented a wonderful program for parents on digital citizenship and all that we are doing to help students understand the navigation of the internet. Please visit our website (www.lopatcongschool.org) for additional parent resources to help us in the technological education of our children. In addition to Mr. Shea, Mrs. Linda Schuler from Community Prevention Resources presented a fine program regarding developmental assets. She allowed audience members time to reflect on the assets that they had supported throughout their own years of growing up. To me, this provided quite a venue to reflect on and appreciate even more all that I had been blessed with during my formative years.
During the evening, Mrs. Schuler provided me with a personal copy of one of her references entitled Great Places to Learn: Creating Asset-Building Schools that Help Students Succeed. This professional read is one that I am not quite through, but with the conversation and insight that Mrs. Schuler has shared, I can envision the reasons for including asset-building information contained within the pages as part of our school district practices. As the author states, “…to foster academic achievement and to provide a safe and healthy environment in which achievement can best occur…” is obviously a component of a school district’s mission. Think about it. During the month of October when we are mandated to provide a “Week of Respect” and a “Violence Awareness Week” in my opinion, we acknowledge the fact that strong home-school connections are vital to success. We have also had the privilege of extending the message of Rachel’s Challenge to our middle school students for yet another year hoping to strengthen the acts of kindness that one can do on a daily basis. To paraphrase the authors of this particular text, as positive assets go up, negatives go down. Isn’t that what we want for all of our children – successful academics while learning in a safe and caring environment? Only all of us together can create such a place for learning and growing.
As we look forward to all that the rest of our school year can bring, please remember to be a positive part of a home-school partnership. November brings ample opportunities for that with American Education Week, parent-teacher conferences, and literacy information nights all just around the corner. Please reach out to us so that we can work together to do the best that we can to support our children in all areas of their development. Change happens every day, and together, we can assure that all of our children continue to move forward in their learning and growing. As the authors in the book state, “…the ‘work’ of building assets is never over…” Only together can we make a positive difference.