Notes from Mrs. Nash 10/4/19

Posted on Oct 04, 2019

Dear SJF Families, Today marks the half-way period for the trimester and we are well into the swing of things. Now is a great time to speak with your children about their successes and challenges thus far in the school year. The SJF leadership team and the faculty are working hard to align our curriculum, creating and providing more time for professional learning circles focused on subject-area and grade level collaboration. The end goal is to ensure that through our lessons and unit planning, we are differentiating to appeal to all of our learners and creating a scaffolding structure where each grade consistently builds upon the prior year. This consistency will help boost our students’ understanding along with our school-wide ASPIRE scores. With every new school year comes an adjustment and transition period, not only for the students, but the parents and teachers as well. Everything is new! This new beginning can bring about great excitement, but it can also bring about worry or confusion because it can feel like a different experience than that of the year before. Social media can be a great tool to connect us all, allowing us opportunities to communicate about what is taking place in school each day. However, more recently, it has also been utilized to negatively address concerns in the classroom or with a teacher. It is so important that we remember the proper chain of communication when a question or concern arises and always model the behavior that we want our children to emulate. I urge you to please contact your child’s teacher directly, always using respectful language, if you have confusion or a concern as opposed to taking to social media to seek your answer or solution. We certainly recognize and embrace the fact that there is always room for improvement and growth which is why we set school-wide and individual goals. We want and hope to be able to partner with you and learn from your respectful feedback in order for us to best serve your children each and every day. Your feedback is very important to us which is why we invited all of you to participate in a round table discussion, hosted by our School Advisory Board, regarding your experience with all aspects of our school, including academics. It is also why we invested in the 6 Essentials Survey that was distributed in the spring of last year. This year, we will also be circulating the 6 Essentials Survey during the winter and spring trimester. That information combined with our daily communication with our families along with faculty, staff and alumni input is driving our decision-making process and prioritization for the future of our school through the work of our Strategic Planning Committee. St. John Fisher truly is a great place to be. We have an unbelievably involved, self-less and committed parent-base; we have kind, creative, intelligent and fun children; we have a dedicated, loving and professional faculty and staff. It takes a village and in order for us to all be the best version of ourselves, we need to be there for one another. I am so proud to be a part of this community. Thank you for your continued support of Catholic education, but specifically St. John Fisher. In unity and hope, -Mrs. Maura Nash St. John Fisher School