On behalf of all of us at Evolution Alliance, Welcome Back to School! The excitement of beginning anew and seeing all of the new faces in our classrooms is truly unlike any other experience. It allows each of us as educators to start with a new slate and begin to ignite our new learners’ desires to learn new material in the next step of their educational journey. In what other profession can you literally restart every 185 days? Education really is the dream occupation; one where we are able to learn from one another, impact lives on a scale that very few have the opportunity to do while shaping the future of our respective local communities. Thank you for being you!
This year, please take a lesson from what we’ve learned over the past 2.5 years. Learn to set limits. That is, make sure that you allot specific time periods each day to spend with your family, take walks, read a good book or just enjoy some peace and quiet. School emails and phone calls can be completed outside of these time periods. In order for any of us to continue to be effective, we have to take care of ourselves and each other before we can even think about taking care of our students. Reflect upon some of the positive lessons we’ve learned from the pandemic. What worked? An example in many schools is that virtual meetings actually did have some benefit. IEP meetings, Parent Teacher Conferences and PTO/PTA meetings became much better attended when we broke down the proverbial schoolhouse walls and allowed people to attend in their environment of comfort. In many instances, we learned that we may not know as much about technology as our students. Use that to our advantage! Ask students how they’d design a response to a query/assignment using a technical program. Allow our students to show us more of a glimpse into their worlds so that we can be more effective in creating instructional opportunities designed to connect better with each of them!
We continue to see a dire trend in education where educators are leaving the profession at rather alarming rates. This cannot continue as it isn’t a sustainable model. Instead, we need to focus on why we entered this profession in the first place, focus on taking care of ourselves and each other while truly impacting each life that walks through our hallways as a student. We are in the best profession in the world, one that helps chart a course for each and every child that enters our schools. There is no other profession that has that type of impact on the future of our world. We value each and every educator immensely and will continue to do everything we can to continually support you. Welcome Back to School and we hope to see you soon!