September 11

Welcome to the 2007-2008 school year! We currently have 578 students enrolled. That is a far cry from the little over 400 students Swift Creek had when I arrived a little over 2 years ago. From a principal’s perspective, we have the perfect size school. With 578 students, you earn enough months of employment to implement our current instructional program and yet, we are still small enough for me to know all the students names! I can still even learn everyone’s carpool number to help that run efficiently.

Speaking of our instructional program (nice transition huh?), I hope everyone has had a chance to go to our newly improved website. THANK YOU, Ms. Pittman for your hard work this summer. We have added many helpful pieces to the web site, including a tab for Swift Creek Academics. Within this tab, there is useful information and links to our work in Positive Behavior Support (PBS), Professional Learning Communities (PLCs), Guided Reading, Science Kits, Writer’s Workshop, Cognitive Guided Instruction (CGI), 21st Century Learning, and many other things. The grade level pages are also updated with pertinent information about each grade level, which includes their Essential Learning Outcomes – the MUST HAVES for all students. Furthermore, there is new information about school supply lists, bus routes, helpful resources for parents and students, and even an incredible PTA website (thanks to Victoria Stephens for that!). Several of our teachers even have their own website linked from ours. The web site promises to be updated frequently to keep parents and students abreast. I hope you all find this a useful tool and will keep us informed as to how to continually improve it to meet your needs

Finally, I wanted to tell you of a book I recently read entitled, How to Fill Your Bucket. In this book it talked told a parable about everyone having an invisible bucket that is constantly filled and emptied depending upon how we treated others and how others treated us. When we treat others well and when other people treat us well, our bucket is filled. Conversely, our buckets are emptied when we mistreat others or when others mistreat us. Obviously, we perform better and feel better when our bucket is full. Now, it is probably impossible to always fill your and others buckets – I mean we all have bad days and moments. But, it did get me thinking: Do I help fill others buckets on a daily basis. I told this story to the Swift Creek staff and we are going to emphasize filling everyone’s bucket in the Swift Creek community. I hope it gets you thinking about that, too!