a word of friendship

As many of you know, the 41st president of the United States recently passed away. And no matter which side of the political spectrum you find yourself, his funeral was touching. His son the 43rd president provided his eulogy.  When watching a portion of this eulogy with my son Luca the next day, I was taken back by both the intimacy and power of the words shared by George W (43rd) about his dad George H (41st). I also found connections to the work we are aiming to do here at St. Anthony New Brighton Schools.

“We cannot hope only to leave our children a bigger car, a bigger bank account. We must hope to give them a sense of what it means to be a loyal friend, a loving parent, a citizen who leaves his home, his neighborhood and town better than he found it.”

These words taken from President George H. Bush’s inaugural address, these words are reflected in our buildings.  Recently, staff created a random sample of (anonymous) parents and requested their time in taking a survey. I also asked key leaders in our school to take this survey, along with the entire staff at St. Anthony New Brighton Schools. This survey consisted of just a few questions and question three asked participants to describe what success would look like for a graduating senior from St. Anthony Village High School (SAVHS). This question generated the most similar responses. Many parents, staff, and leaders outlined a SAVHS graduate as not only knowledgeable, but also one who is kind and ready to become a citizen of the world. I just know, if any school, any community, any group of people can embody those ideas set forth for our country by our 41st president, it is St. Anthony New Brighton Schools.

I know this is possible, because the first question from this same survey asked participants to identify what about St. Anthony New Brighton schools makes them the most proud? One of the most stated responses was: the staff.

We have a staff who is not only willing to develop rigorous lessons with relevant content, but also go out of their way to build caring relationships with students. In addition, this staff is willing to put others’ needs ahead of their own.  What I see in the hallways of Wilshire Park, St. Anthony Middle School, St. Anthony Village High School, and the Community Center are adults who are willing to, in the words President George Bush, “stop and ask if a sick child had gotten better, and stayed a moment there to trade a word of friendship”. There can be no better role modeling than adults in the lives of children showing kindness, friendship, and love to each other. I think this is why many are most proud of our staff.

In just a few days we will be on break. Many students, families, and staff will be celebrating holidays, and everyone will be bringing in a new year. Although we will miss each other, I doubt many staff will be sad about having a few days off to celebrate and rejuvenate. I also know many families will use this time to connect with friends and family. I know that is my plan! I appreciate all of you. Thank you to St. Anthony New Brighton staff for taking such good care of each other and the students. Thank you to our parents/guardians, for trusting us to educate and care for your child(ren). We are honored – it is a gift.

We Are In The Care of Children

I want to share something challenging that happened last week and, as I reflected on it over the weekend, I thought about the complexity of our commitment to the care of all kids. On the same day last week, we had two different families meet with us and advocate on behalf of their children.  While both families would agree that the goal for our educators is to show up, care about all kids, and expertly teach them, their requests of us as school leaders were in direct conflict with one another. They both believed recent events and conversations regarding equity within our schools had a direct, personal, and negative effect on their child’s identity. Their asks of us as school leaders were incongruent. In these meetings, parents, who were at school advocating for their own children, shared two truths that exist in our school spaces.  I share this experience because I want to be clear that it’s my job–and the job of the staff in our schools–to keep all kids safe, welcome, and respected. But this work is complicated. Our community, our neighbors, our families have different opinions on how to best go about this work. Multiple perspectives exist in the same space in our schools and community. And, as a school district and community, we must all remain focused and committed to the care of children.

In schools, we often engage in discussions regarding the best way to educate, should we teach phonics or whole language – how about standards-based grading? These are important conversations and call for debate and discussion. That said, the most critical part of our work as educators is to be in the care of children–to show up and care about all kids–we do this work in partnership with parents. You as parents/guardians give us your children and we, as educators, must educate and prepare them for college/career and also love them unconditionally. The bottomline, this care for our kids is a value we all share in our diverse community.

Our school district cares deeply for children – all children. We are a purpose-driven district and I’m a purpose-driven superintendent. Although my jobs may have changed in my 20 year career as an educator, I have remained committed to my purpose. I educate with determination and commitment to create ethical, educated, and engaged citizens committed to justice. These aren’t just words to me.  They guide me through all decisions and all opportunities.  

Being purpose-driven doesn’t make the work easy. In some ways it makes the work harder. I expect my work to reflect my purpose and the priorities of this district.  This means making our schools spaces where we can speak our truths (as those parents did last week), stay engaged, and stay committed to providing meaningful experiences and deep learning for all kids.

Thank you for showing up and doing this work with us. Our kids deserve our collective attention.

First Day of School 2018

The first day of school never fails to excite me.  The kids in the halls, the parents waving at street corners or from cars as they drop off kids, the new backpacks and shiny tennis shoes.  I love it all. Isn’t it so awesome the new year is here? Welcome to the 2018-2019 school year.

It’s a huge honor to be serving as the superintendent.  I’ve learned this summer that while many people know who I am, it’s important to make sure I am accessible to all.  I want people to know the real Renee and what I’m about. I know it won’t necessarily matter what I say, it will be my actions and connections that matter.  However, it’s important for me to let everyone know who I am and what I’m about.

What matters to me is family.  Not just my own, but my SA-NB family.  This sense of loyalty and commitment is deeply rooted in my own family.  I was raised in a large, loud, loving Italian family. I’m the youngest of four- and the first three were boys.  Some have joked I was raised by a pack of wolves, and those brothers are everything to me. Our mom, Marion, is the classic Italian grandmother.  She is happiest when she’s feeding all of us and our families- there are 19 of us now. She still calls us to remind us to wear our jackets when she sees that it’s going to be chilly in the various places we live.  Marion taught us that family is love and that love is a verb. This is essential to understanding how I see my SA-NB family. I’m not afraid to say I lead with my heart and all of the loyalty and commitment that comes from it.

I’m also purpose-driven, and I’ve had the same purpose throughout my 20 year career as an educator. I educate with determination and commitment to create ethical, educated, and engaged citizens committed to justice. These aren’t just words to me.  They guide me through all decisions and all opportunities.  It’s also important to me to tell you how I intend to go about living out this purpose as your superintendent.  There are a few key qualities that you can expect from me. In fact, I hope you hold me accountable to them if you ever wonder or question the ways in which I’m going about serving this district:

I intend to serve with transparency and trust– I am open and straightforward. You can count on my honest reaction to concerns, issues and/or questions.  Partnership and collaboration are my go-to.  I am open to all ideas and will work to hear from many when making a decision.  I have a great deal of drive and energy– I work hard. It is not my nature to be idle. I will work passionately to ensure success for SA-NB schools.  I will serve with integrity- I keep my promises, I do not cover up bad news, I take responsibility and I place the needs of SA-NB schools over personal gain. You can expect flexibility and change– I accept challenge and I want to be challenged. I see this desire as the key to collaboration and growth.

I’ll try to be in touch on a consistent basis.  Soon, I look forward to telling you about some of the foundational work we started this summer.  With a bunch of our district’s leaders, we dove into the district’s current mission, vision, and values and made connections to how they inspire us to deliver high-quality, in-depth learning at SA-NB.  Stay tuned. It’s going to be great doing this work with you!

– Thanks, Renee

SANBE Community Fund

May 24, , 2018

It’s been awhile, St. Anthony-New Brighton!  I’m excited to welcome Kristine Lizdas to my blog as a guest writer.  She and a team of other dedicated community members have helped us shape the Community Fund we started during the holidays of 2017 into something pretty cool.  Please read below and consider contributing to our Community Fund. It means a lot to us. Thanks, Renee

Dear friends and fellow district families,

As parents and caregivers, this time of the year often involves a frantic scramble to coordinate our kids’ summer schedules and register for a complex combination of camps and classes. The process typically involves multi-colored calendars, a lot of time online and a fair bit of stress; but we repeat this scramble every year because we believe that by doing so, our kids return to school in the fall more prepared for learning and ready to launch into the new school year. As a community member that wishes this same readiness for all of our district students, I am writing to you today to ask that you consider making a financial contribution of any amount to the new SANBE Community Fund, and by doing so, help ensure that as many district students as possible can enjoy the opportunities summer break offers and be equally prepared for learning come fall.

Our Origin Story

Many of you will remember that in December, 2016, Dr. Renee Corneille reached-out to the St. Anthony Middle School community announcing the creation of the “SAMS Community Fund.” As the SAMS community, we were invited to join school administrators and staff in supporting the full participation of all students within our school district by financially contributing to the fund. Unsurprisingly, the community’s response to Renee’s initial invitation and announcement was fantastic, and consequently, the SAMS Community Fund has been able to remove a wide variety of barriers to many students’ full and equitable participation in our district.

Following the successful launch of the SAMS Community Fund, school personnel and community members approached the St. Anthony-New Brighton Education Foundation (SANBE) Board to provide the structure through which the Community Fund could reach the most kids and families across all the district schools, including those kids participating in SAV Community Services.  The SANBE Board agreed and the SAMS Community Fund officially matured into the SANBE Community Fund.  I am grateful to add that since its inception, the Community Fund is increasingly a portal through which other community groups are effectively reaching all of our district kids and families.

What We Are Trying to Do

The SANBE Community Fund provides a new and distinct opportunity for community giving.  Through the Community Fund, school staff and administrators, who are often most aware of the real-life, day-to-day hurdles kids face to participating in all the offerings of our district, can quickly and flexibly remove many of these obstacles.  Because of their proximity to and relationships with our kids, school staff are well-positioned to recognize and address the actual barriers limiting kids’ participation in our district – whether it is lacking the proper clothes for a choir performance, lunch money on a given week, adequate equipment/clothes for athletics, bus fare to return home after an athletic event, or simply a schedule planner to track tests and play rehearsals. The Community Fund strives to ensure that all students can fully and equitably participate in every aspect of what we as a community value to be the whole student experience.  

Back to Our Ask

Most of us will agree that the whole student experience includes how kids spend their time over summer break; and for that reason, our desire to remove as many barriers as possible for all our students persists – even through the sun and heat. So, we renew our invitation to you to help support our district students this summer. As we know all too well, summer classes, tutoring, enrichment activities and athletics involve fees, supplies and other expenses. Even summer jobs often involve some start-up costs (e.g. paint brushes, bus fare, certifications).  Through your contributions, the SANBE Community Fund can help offset some of the barriers to these basic, and important, summer experiences.

Ultimately, it is our hope that all of our students will return to school this fall prepared for learning and ready to launch into the new school year, so thank you for considering our request. If you are able, please direct contributions to the “SANBE Community Fund,” and mail to 3303 33rd Ave. NE, St. Anthony Village, MN  55418, or you are welcome to drop off your donation directly at any of the district schools’ main offices.

Gratefully,

Kristine Lizdas

SANBE Community Fund

*We will continue to provide information about the new SANBE Community Fund; but in the meantime, please feel free to direct any questions to our operating committee via this email address: sanbecommunityfund@gmail.com.

Welcome to the 17-18 School Year!

Welcome back to school! Almost 3 weeks! We are up and running, and, boy, doesn’t it feel good? We’ve got great stuff to share with you today…

This year at SAMS we, the staff, are recentering our work to make our vision a reality. We know we want our school to be a place committed to authentic learning in a caring environment. But as we’ve worked towards this the past five years, we have noticed we need to do better, we need to reconnect with our vision and recommit.*

Here are a few questions we have been asking ourselves to recommit to our vision of being a school committed to authentic learning in a caring environment:

  • Who we are as a school has been positively influenced by who we were. Staying connected to those pieces of our identity will help us become who our students need us to be. In what ways are we able to stay connected to our long-lasting values to help us commit to our vision at a deeper level?
  • In what ways might we focus our work around and communicate our “why” to our students, families, and each other? We know that when we ground our work in our underlying belief- all will learn and contribute- we will never fail to lose track of the most essential work. We watched this video to really make clear how significant the benefit of knowing your why (or underlying belief) can be.
  • How do we reach our goals of being a racially-equitable school through high-quality instruction? What learning does high-levels look like? As a staff, we spent time reflecting on the some of our most powerful learning. We noticed trends in our experiences. We reported learning from people, teachers, or mentors who knew us well as learners. They demanded from us extra effort and tolerance for failure. Our real learning required us to stretch ourselves in work that was just beyond our comfort zones. Reflecting on these deeper learning helped us identify the types of learning experiences we seek to provide for our students.
  • What might we need to unlearn and relearn about high-quality teaching and learning? Decades of research tells us that learning discreet pieces of information in isolation does not lead to transformational learning. Real, rigorous learning only happens when our students are able to form frameworks in our minds about how new information connects to learning we’ve already mastered. Transformational learning only happens when we are able to reflect on what misperceptions and preconceptions we have. It only happens when we are allowed to think about our learning (metacognition). Our classrooms might need to be reorganized and redesigned to allow this kind of learning to happen more frequently. There might be costs- fewer grades yet more qualitative feedback and less teacher-input and more student self-directed learning- just to name a few.
  • How do we model the importance of relationships to learning? Many of you know the fractions quote by heart now. We joke a lot about how often we say it, throw it around, put it on tshirts, write it in blogs. However, at SAMS we are proud to proclaim our commitment to deeper relationship. We believe it is what makes us extra special as a school. We are not embarrassed to express our love for our students, all of them, even when their behavior makes them unlikeable. The kids are all ours, and if we believe that as wholeheartedly as we do, the foundation upon which learning is built must be about strong and sound relationships. We love your kids, we love helping them learn, and we can’t wait to watch them have a successful, if not transformative, year.

We are going to ask you to help us with our re-commitment to our vision to a be a school committed to authentic learning in a caring environment. You will see some new dynamics in play when it comes to the work we have always done. For example:

  • SAMSA (also called SAMS Parent Council) will be focused on this recommitment. We will move away from our sole-focus on racial equity this year, though you will see the direct connections to our racial equity work imbedded in all conversations about learning. We can’t wait to meet you, see you, learn with and from you starting next Monday! Sept. 25, 7-8 pm, Room 217. Bring a friend! See you there.
  • You will see a different approach to conferences this year. Get ready to help us make conferences better than ever by telling us more in-depth information about your middle-schooler. We know you know who they are better than anyone and that matters. Stay tuned.
  • Each quarter this year, there will be a student assembly focusing on one or more of our shared values of hard work, all belong, and respect. While students are participating in these four different assemblies, their teachers will be doing their own learning and professional development. Our first one is scheduled for Oct. 11. The students will experience a well-recommended multi-media presentation centered on perspective and identity. While they participate in the assembly, teachers will be doing their own learning as a staff. “Learning is the work” at SAMS, and we believe these once-a-quarter opportunities will benefit students and teachers.

The year has gotten off to a great start. It’s exciting to be in the company of each other, your kids, and our greater SAMS community. We invite you not just to the parent meeting next Monday, but to stop in and/or stay in touch in any way that feels safe and accessible for you. You’ll find us on Twitter (@SAMS282 or @abskujawski), Instagram (@SAMSHuskies282), and there’s always those daily announcements Traci, queen of SAMS, sends.

Thanks for trusting us with your kids. It’s such a joy to do this work with you. Take good care!

-amy (on behalf of Renee and the rest of our staff too!)

*If you are interested in the evidence we’ve gathered to help us determine the direction of the work this year and important ways to recommit to our vision, know that we are all about sharing. It’s just we’ve got a feeling the blog is going to be long already, so let us know if you’d like to have a longer conversation about this.

Caring Environment at Work

You have probably heard someone at SAMS throw out the line, “there is no such thing as other people’s children.” This commitment- to provide for the students at SAMS only what we would accept and only what we would desire for our own kids- drives our work.  It also reflects the values we uphold as we go about our work of leading, serving, and learning.  Those values include respect, hard work, and belonging as well as others.  At SAMS, the grown-ups around here not only try to model those values, but we also try to make them more explicit so we can reflect on them with students.  

When it comes to these values, we model them, speak to them, and make them tangible for our kids.  Ideally, our values are reflected in our day-to-day work.  How might we respond to a conflict between two students? How might we respond to a student who needs more time to learn?  How might we choose the texts and materials we use in our classrooms? However, our values should also be explicit in the way we serve on the larger scale.  How are the values reflected in our school climate?  How are the values carried through from Husky Camp to 8th grade promotion?  How are our values used to build trusting relationships with all stakeholders?

As Renee likes to ask, “What’s the bottom line?”  It’s this: with so much at stake when it comes to educating our kids, we must be on the same page when it comes to what we want for our kids.  Whether it’s our mission, vision, values or our belief that “there’s no such thing as other people’s children,” it’s never just words to us.  They form the foundation of the experience students and their families have at SAMS.  It’s imperative for us to know how they can be strengthened by the aspirations our families and community have for our kids.

Working together with all families within our SAMS community is always critical.  Yet as we work to make progress towards becoming an anti-racist institution, we are learning it is imperative to ground this work in the context of our values, especially the ones we all share for our children and students.

Our hope for this spring is to get a clearer view of how the aspirations and values of our families and our community can support and bolster our SAMS’ mission, vision, values and beliefs.  Here is our plan:

  1. The first step will be to ask a random sampling of at least 30% of our families to respond to a short survey.  If you see a survey in your email inbox, please know that you have been chosen randomly and it would be greatly appreciated if you took the 10 minutes to respond to the questions.  Once we have a substantial, statistically-sound random sampling*, we will be ready to move to the next step.
  2. The second step will be to give all families a chance to reflect on the data we receive. During this second step, we will invite anyone interested to come review and respond to the data either at next week’s SAMSA meeting or throughout the day on May 2, here at SAMS from 7:30-2:30.  Using the input from all families who participate, we will be able to use it to draw conclusions about how we could best integrate the aspirations we all hold for our school and our students.  
  3. The last step will be to review the findings and discoveries at our May SAMS meeting.  This last step of our process will be held at SAMS, Room 217 on May 22 from 7-8 pm.  

We are excited to wrap up this year with this collaboration with all of you.  We will keep you posted on the different stages of this collaboration.  Please plan on attending next Monday’s SAMSA meeting at 7pm, if you can!

IMG_6198*Little known fact: Renee’s doctoral work led to  the discovery that she is a little bit of a survey and statistic nerd.  While not every step of our process will reflect perfectly valid and reliable information, she is eager to explain why our model makes the most sense for what we are trying to accomplish.  In all seriousness, she would love to talk shop with anyone.  Feel free to reach out with questions and comments!

ALL Will Learn and Contribute

The following letter was read to our students today at SAMS.

Dear Students,

As we go into our three-day MLK weekend, Dr. Corneille and I have a quick message for you.  We hope you join us in celebrating the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  We hope you take time to celebrate and reflect on the extraordinary life of service he led, and we hope it inspires you- as it has us.

As teachers, our lives have been enriched by the lives of hundreds, even thousands, of students.  All of them, and all of you, deserve to live the dream Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke about in his influential speech.  We like to say around here that ALL will learn and contribute.  And when we say “all”, we mean ALL. Every one of you- regardless of your race, culture, background, religion, ability, gender, sexuality- deserves a bright and promising future, and as the leaders of your school, we are committed to giving you the education you need to get you on your way.

Together, with your teachers, we are deeply committed to building a school where all students feel as if they really do belong, they can contribute, and they will learn.  This commitment requires of us a laser-like focus on racial justice.  We owe it to all of you to not just celebrate the strength the diversity of our school offers our community, but we must also disrupt outdated thinking. Some examples of this outdated thinking are talking about race is controversial or white people can opt out of the work to dismantle racism because it does not affect them. Talking about race and racism is important, and dismantling racism benefits all of us in significant ways.

Together, with your teachers, we have been working all year to better understand the role race and racism plays in our school.  We welcome you to ask us about what we are learning, what keeps us curious, and what questions we are asking.

Together, with your teachers, we pledge to stay inspired by the life of a great American hero like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  We vow to stay inspired by all the promise you show us, too.

We will wrap up with a powerful quote of Dr. King’s- “Everybody can be great … because anybody can serve…You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love.”

Enjoy the MLK weekend, SAMS students.

Ms. Kujawski and Dr. Corneille

My New Year’s Wish

Hi all.  It’s Amy K, from Renee’s office at SAMS.  It’s also me in that picture baking with my daughter on my back.  When my husband showed me this picture he took of my youngest and I baking over winter break, it reminded me of parenting advice my minister offered when I was pregnant with our middle child.  She told me the only parenting advice I’d ever need was to “be the person you want your kids to grow up to be”.  Simple enough, yet what a challenge.  I couldn’t help but see this picture as a metaphor and wonder how differently or similarly would I behave if Callie was always on my back, looking over my shoulder, hearing every word I said.

This wasn’t just good parenting advice, it was also good teacher advice.  

Be the learner you want your students to be.

Be the musician you want your students to be.

Be the champion for justice as you want your students to be.  

As the new year gets under way, my wish for the grown-ups in our SAMS community is to have the courage, commitment, and awareness to be the people we want our kids to grow up to be.  We’ll need to rely on each other, as well as our senses of humor, to pull this off.   Our kids will continue to do things like wait until the night before a project is due to get started on it.  Some of them might cry hard over a B+ even though you’ve never expected all As.  They are going to say things they do not mean and try on attitudes that are anything but appealing.  But they are also going to create beautiful artwork in art class, make connections between their current world and the past in Social Studies, and solve complicated algebra problems in math class.  In fact, they are going to shine in all sorts of classrooms.  And while they are stretching their minds with all this learning, we must stretch ourselves to be vigilant in our learning too.  May 2017 be our best yet.  Our kids deserve it.

Before I sign off, let me share why I’m here on Renee’s blog today.  She and I are both committed to updating this blog more consistently. While sometimes Renee and I joke about sharing a brain, you can tell from this post, we do not share writing styles.  But we’ll both be here more often trying to share pieces of our world here at SAMS.  We invite you to share questions and prompts to help us follow through on this goal.  Go ahead- we’d love to see some comments, thoughts, and questions.

Cheers,

Amy Kujawski

 

 

It Takes a Village…

Dear friends and families of SAMS,

It’s hard to believe the end of the year is here.  The 2016-2017 year is nearly halfway over, and it seems like just the other day when many of us got together behind the school for our Back-to-School celebration.  The end of the calendar year means winter break and the holidays.  As we get closer to both of these, we want to announce the kick-off of the SAMS Community Fund (SCF).  

We are establishing the SAMS Community Fund to help guarantee all students and families have the same access to everything that makes our community awesome.  Here at SAMS, we see students and families who are unable to participate, experience, and enjoy this community fully. For example, students often need certain clothing items for concerts, sporting events, and Work Hard/Play Hard days.  Or food gets tight over the extended breaks when some of our students cannot receive the two meals they usually get during the week.   Bus passes for our students to use for transportation to sporting events or after-school rides home is just another example.

We recognize there are many structures in place to support families.  It’s just that there are small, seemingly inexpensive costs that prevent all kids from enjoying everything this school and community has to offer.  We know kids who are hesitant to even tell their parents about these little expenses because they know asking will cause stress.  In the past, we have come together as a staff to cover these costs and expenses, yet, recently, the needs are becoming more and more constant.  We are excited to launch our SAMS Community Fund in hopes that we can provide a more sustainable system to meeting these needs.

To get the SCFund started, my family will be donating $250 to the fund in honor of the SAMS staff.  They are some of the most hard-working and caring educators I’ve ever worked with.  And I invite you, friends and families of our SAMS community, to consider making a donation too.  All donations can be sent to or dropped off at the middle school- SAMS Community Fund ℅ St. Anthony Middle School, 3303 33rd Ave N, St. Anthony, MN 55418.  All donations will be received with a letter of receipt for tax purposes.  

Amy is always walking around here with quotes and things from books she’s reading- one of her favorites is from author Jean Vanier about community.  He writes, “One of the marvelous things about community is that it enables us to welcome and help people in a way we couldn’t as individuals.”   That is exactly why we are creating the SAMS’ Community Fund.  Thank you for considering contributing to this important cause.

Thank you,

Renee

Thankful at SAMS

This week of Thanksgiving, St. Anthony Middle School took on the challenge to be overt in our gratitude. We had a “Thankful Assembly” this morning. We definitely stayed true to our middle school roots and played some silly games and students won some great prizes, but the bulk of the event was about being thankful.

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I often get picked on for my massive love of the “fractions quote” – but the words speak to our vision of creating a school dedicated to authentic learning in a caring environment. Students really ”…will work harder and do things — even odd things like adding fractions for people they love and trust”. We are grateful for this!

The staff at SAMS wanted to show our students how we really do care about them, how we are thankful for them, and how we just-plain enjoy them. So, we made them this video. Be prepared to see our raw and authentic emotion; we love our students, and we are unashamed of being thankful for them, for our work, and for each other.

To the parents of SAMS, thank you for giving us your children every school day, to our larger community, I promise, we are making future citizens ready to take on this world. You should be proud and excited…

Please take 10 minutes and watch this video (shout out to Mr. Meyer for taking the million hours to make this video).

Also, for those of you who want even more insight into our Thankful Assembly click here for our powerpoint with an additional video made by our 7th grade Media Literacy students.

Happy Thanksgiving!