The New School Year is Underway!

I am happy to report that Penn-Trafford has had a great start to the school year.  I have spent time in each building throughout the past two days and it has been fun to watch the students "get back into the groove".  Today I asked a second grade student at Harrison Park what he was going to learn this year.  He looked at me very excitedly and said "We are going to learn cursive!".  He was pumped up to think about learning such a "big person" thing like cursive.  I asked some kindergarten students at Sunrise if they were going to have fun this year and they yelled "YEA!".  Imagine the enthusiasm...it does a person good to hang out with kids.  At the high school I was standing in the hall with Mr. Inglese when a student went by with her cell phone to her ear.  I don't think she was talking but she told us she was just checking Mr. Inglese to make sure he was following the new BYOD rules.

On Tuesday the entire teaching staff met at the high school.  Part of their day was listening to me talk about the upcoming year.  The presentation can be found here.  You may not get a lot out of the presentation since I use slides to remind me of what to say but you are welcomed to look at the presentation none the less.  We were fortunate this year to be able to purchase t-shirts for the staff with Penn-Trafford's instructional core values on them.  Each school had a different color t-shirt but they all said the same thing.  This was a symbolic way to show that all schools can have their own identity but are still part of a bigger whole.  The t-shirts were paid for through generous donations.  The largest donation came from the P-T Community Education Foundation. These generous donations allowed me to get the t-shirts for the staff without using any tax-payer funds.  I took a picture of the staff as I started my speech on Tuesday.  The excitement of the teachers to start the new year was infectious.  I know their enthusiasm was a big part of why the new year has started so well.