Dear Parents,
First, I want to share with you that I purposely did not call on Sunday night to remind you about the minimum day today, because I was told by a few people that parents are on top of it and they would remember. When I spoke with parents dropping kids off at school this morning, they did not know there was a minimum day. Some had so much shock on their faces that they felt it was my fault because I did not remind them like I do. So should I feel safe in stating that I should remind you with those little calls of the little things that slip our minds? J Let me know.
With last semester in my rearview mirror, I am glad to say that it went well. Yes, there were a few bumps in the road in the beginning, but for the most part it was a good one. I will be reviewing grades for the school and will share what I notice with you.
I cannot tell you how fortunate I have been to have had your support on so many of the tasks that are necessary to run a school of our size to meet the needs of our children. Can you believe that we have been able to replace every computer lab in our school for our students, faculty and office staff in the last two years? How have we been able to do that in a budget crunch, you say? With a little foresight, planning, creativity, grants and generous donations from you, we were able to appropriately replenish our computer systems school wide. As a result, our children now have access to technology that is current. I have received many notes of thanks from our kids who are happy with the upgrades. In addition to the computers, we have been able to purchase LCD projectors for almost all of our classrooms. This was again done with multiple sources of funding including the donations from you through PTSA and your private donations from your places of employment and you. I am often humbled by the fact that as a school we have this kind of support.
Over the years, when I have asked for your input on a variety of matters, you have always given me your opinions and I have welcomed them. I knew ultimately that I had to make the final decision, and with your input have made some difficult choices. I have always kept you in the loop and never hid from you even if you agreed or disagreed with me. I have always been there to stand by a decision made by me one way or another.
I would like for you to know that I will always continue to seek your input. I want you to continue to provide me with your view because it is important that I know what that view is. However, please remember that be it good or be it bad, “The buck stops here.” I will never shy away from a decision no matter how trivial or controversial it may be. All of my decisions come with only one thing in mind. That is our children’s best interests.
It is rare that decisions are made in which everybody is happy. I have seen many no-win situations since I have been in education. The impossible always being asked with little assistance and even less money. That’s fine with me. (Isn’t that why I get paid the “big bucks”?) We still keep trying to dream the impossible dream.
I am taking the time to write this because we are heading into some real unchartered territory as a school and district. With the gloom and doom predicted financially, I will have to make some difficult decisions ahead. Some will be personnel decisions. Some will be academic decisions. Still others may involve athletic and extracurricular decisions.
At the last Coffeehouse Chat, I shared that I may have to look at class size and it might be necessary to determine that we may not have a particular out of season sports class in order to keep an academic class at a reasonable size that is to the benefit of learning. I would need your support on something like this if your child participates in the sports class that may be dropped. I will be holding fast to what we say we value in our mission statement which is that a rigorous academic program is at the core of our school.
Regardless if it is academics, sports or community involvement, I am going to need your support and input as we walk through these challenging times together. We as a school and a community will need to place our agendas on the same page at the same time to the benefit of our children. More than anything else, I am going to depend on you to be there for me and you can certainly depend that I will be there for you and our children.
On another note, in attempting to improve the academic achievement of all of our students, we are currently discussing our bell schedule for next year. We are looking at making a change from the current schedule in which students attend class in a week with 1 day with all 55 minute period classes and 4 block days (classes are 1 hour and 40 minutes) in a week to 3 days with the shorter periods and only 2 days of block classes. The thinking is that with shorter period days, kids with shorter attention spans and difficulty focusing in class for an hour and 40 minutes would have a better opportunity to perform better academically. There is research that supports this, but nothing is conclusive on the part of the block days or shorter period days. Please speak with your children and tell me what the family thinks.
I would like to hear from you on this email and its points. Please let me know your thoughts. As always it will be greatly appreciated.
Your friendly neighborhood principal,
Charles Salter
csalter@capousd.org
