New Year's thoughts

Educators have an interesting yearly cycle.  We start with a new group of students in September but also have a chance to restart once the new calendar year begins.  I'm not one for resolutions as they seem to start strong and fade quickly or are forgotten almost as soon as the calendar year begins.  But the start of a new calendar year is also a chance to start something new with our kids, something we haven't tried before or a twist on something that we've always done.  When you arrive at school on Monday, we have a chance to renew relationships with one another, refresh relationships that might not be going as we'd like, and recharge relationships with our kids.  Day one of the 2016-2017 school year began with all staff greeting the students outside.  With the uncertainty of the weather, I'd like to make sure that all staff greet the students to start the day somewhere different than their "normal" spots.  If you normally meet students outside your rooms, why not meet them at the door, or in the commons, or outside, or at the buses.  Shake it up a little bit so that they know that you missed them as much as they missed you.

Calendar

Monday, January 2nd

• Welcome back!  Let's meet the kids as they come back!

Tuesday, January 3rd

• Basketball practice 7:00-8:15
• Homework Club 4:15-5:15

Wednesday, January 4th

• Basketball practice 7:00-8:15

Thursday, January 5th

• Basketball practice 7:00-8:15
• Grade level and specials meetings
• Homework Club 4:15-5:15

Friday, January 6th

• Basketball practice 7:00-8:15

Saturday, January 7th

• Choirs singing National Anthem at the Milwaukee Wave game!

Tweets, quotes, and blogs

Play Your Drum in 2017 (from Dave Burgess- Play the heck out of your drum!)

M.A.D. (from Matthew Meyer, a #principalsinaction colleague)

My 2016 year in review (from me- What would be your monthly highlights?)

Collateral Beauty (from Kelley Begley McCall, a #principalsinaction colleague)

Love what you do (from Eric Ewald, a #principalsinaction colleague)
There weren't too many tweets from @mertonint or on the #mertonint hashtag, so I thought I would put a link to the #kidsdeserveit hashtag from Wednesday night's chat.

One word challenge

If you remember last year, I challenged you all to come up with one word for the year.  It wasn't a resolution or a goal, but a word that would guide you for the year.  Mine was focus, and admittedly sometimes I was in focus and sometimes I was out of focus.  Regardless, I always had that word to go back to when I was unsure of the path I was taking or the path we were taking.  Ted Huff, one of my middle level colleagues, put out the challenge again this year to our Leading in the Middle and PTCamp Voxer groups so I decided I would take the challenge.  My word for this year is priorities.  I'm sure there will be a blog post about that before the end of the semester.  If you had to pick a word, what would it be and why?  Here is a graphic that will be on my wall on Monday.

I was happy for our Winter Break and my time with family, but I am ready to get back to school.  I hope that you are, too.  See you on Monday.

Be the one!

Jay

Take care of the kids.  Take care of each other.  Take care of yourself.- John Gunnell