“We should remember that good fortune often happens when opportunity meets with preparation.” –Thomas Edison
On Monday, August 11th, the entire Classical Staff from all four school sites gathered to prepare for the coming year, our 20th as a school. We said “Welcome Back” to our returning teachers and “Welcome” to our new teachers. There were great results to celebrate that scholars have achieved under our care. We reflected on our opportunities to grow and how we will address these opportunities as we continue our work. Our theme for this years’ Kick Off was Broadening Our Definition of Excellence, and our School and Network Directors led activities to get our whole staff thinking about this theme.
This was our preparation week before our scholars joined us on Wednesday, August 20th. While every school needs to do many of the same tasks to start the year (set up classrooms, learn school rules, create schedules), we extend our focus to thoroughly preparing our teachers. For our network, everything starts with the pursuit of the best instruction possible for our scholars. Each of our leadership members focused in their presentations on the different definitions of excellence that would help us refine our goals for scholars this year, starting with our general definition of excellence for ourselves, the way that we pursue excellence in our own personal lives, the way we craft our own images towards excellence, and the work that we will do expanding excellence together.
In one of these presentations, we were also treated to a panel of returning staff, each of whom were accomplished in their own fields, discussing how we could grow as both individuals and as a network. Our goal is to cement our gains in Math and ELA while expanding our success in every content area to create well-rounded scholars able to pursue their passions at Classical and beyond. This time together gave our teams a chance to learn from their leadership who we are: a data-driven school committed to excellence and dedicated to responding to scholars and meeting their needs. To do this we all must be intentional in our interactions with our peers and our scholars to create the excellent classrooms that our scholars deserve.
As the week progressed, Ms. Davis, our Director of Curriculum and Instruction, also gave presentations on Excellence in Curriculum and Excellence in Instruction to the whole school community. This helped all staff to see the importance of every lesson to a scholars’ growth and the tremendous supports teachers have at their disposal to develop their practice so that all scholars succeed.
All of this allows grade team leaders, school-based Dean and Scholar Services teams to return to their sites to craft their shared team vision, both with shared goals and practices for serving our scholars’ holistic growth in the upcoming school year. Once the vision has been created, every action the team takes to prepare classrooms and routines is in service of upholding this vision. After many days of collectively preparing to uphold Classical’s mission, we shift to maintaining our personal bar of excellence within our teams and schools.
Whenever we gather, we remember that every teacher counts because every scholar does, and we renew our promise that every teacher entering a classroom at Classical has the preparation and the support to be the architect of a truly transformative education for every scholar. We’re excited to begin Year 20 and continue on our journey making an excellent education achievable for every scholar that we serve.
