Rowan-Salisbury Schools

Welcome back Rowan-Salisbury teachers, students, staff, parents and our community as we begin our 2018-2019 school year.

Typically, I am always amazed at how fast the summers fly by and often wonder where the time goes. But this year is an exception. While the summer did indeed fly by, it was filled with extra excitement, anticipation, hard work and planning from administrators over the course of the summer, as we moved towards being named the first and only district in North Carolina to be designated as a renewal school system.

This gives us the freedom to make changes in how our funds are used, how we hire teachers, how we test our children and how we create a school calendar that compliments our community schools. We are honored to have the opportunity to lead this initiative for our state and hope that other districts will soon follow and become renewal school systems, too.

Over the last couple of years, Rowan-Salisbury has become nationally recognized for its innovation and digital transformation. We have captured the attention from many leaders across the state and country, which is one reason I believe we are the best choice to lead this work in North Carolina.

I realize that there are many questions about what being named a renewal school system means and when we will see results. Renewal is a process. You may not see anything different when this school year begins. This is because we are building the foundation. Please stay in touch with your child’s school so you can join in being a part of this exciting adventure.

Teacher leadership

The key to our plan for implementing renewal in our schools is our teachers, the experts. Over the summer, principals learned how to guide this process and how to work with the teacher-led design teams at their schools. Each school has a team. This week, our teachers participated in a training to learn the renewal framework that they will follow in designing and creating how instruction is offered to their students. Our teachers are excited to think and dream differently in making their schools more innovative, engaging and inspiring for their students.

It is natural for us to be both excited and scared at the same time. We will make mistakes and enjoy exciting breakthroughs because this is what innovation is all about. It is challenging work that will bring us to a whole new level of transforming education to better serve our children.

Summer enrichment for students

In addition to the excitement that renewal brings, our students participated in a variety of enrichment camps over summer that engaged them in areas of reading, STEM, inventions, robotics, coding, health science, culinary and the arts — to name a few.

There are not enough words to express the heartfelt desire of our school nutrition staff to be sure that our children receive meals over the summer. For the past couple years, we added distributing books to children along with nutritious meals. I am so proud of our staff for caring deeply about our children and meeting their needs through a charitable heart.

New West Rowan Elementary School

The construction of our new West Rowan Elementary School is on schedule to be completed in December of this year.  Kris Wolfe has worked as principal for both Cleveland and Woodleaf elementary schools since the previous year in preparation of opening the new consolidated school in just a few months down the road. The excitement is escalating for the 2018-2019 school year.

Our schools belong to all of us, and I look forward to joining with all of you as we make this the best school year ever!  We are ready for our children to return on Aug. 27.