Building Relationships

This week I am meeting with various teachers at Williamsburg to begin building relationships and gaining their insight to the school. I challenged them to answer these questions: What do we keep doing? What do we stop doing? What do we start doing? My experience has taught me that the teacher perspective is so very important and vital to effectively running the school - their job is not very thankful, not very glorified, and extremely difficult. Therefore, the knowledge they posses and can share is invaluable to school administration. While holing informal meetings with the teachers, I get to know their personality and passions just a bit more. What a great way to get to know the school. I am looking forward to the rest of my open meetings!

Technology

I know I have blogged about this before, but I feel compelled to do so again. I am a big fan of technology, but sometimes I wonder if it really helps us. Since I have started my new position, I have been plagued with technology issues which seem to be making me less efficient than I would want. Logging in, printing, and emailing have seemed to be an adventure every day. Does this mean I need to not rely less on technology to communicate? But doesn't that make me antiquated or less efficient? I guess this has taught me to always have several plans in place in the event that something doesn't work, or Plan B fails. The good news is that my satellite office works perfectly :)

Starting my new adventure!

Today marked the first day of my employment with Arlington County Public Schools as the Principal of Williamsburg Middle School. I am looking forward to getting to know the WMS learning community and building relationships with a new cohort of professionals.

Recognizing our Jazz Band

Over the past two weeks I have not only had the pleasure of playing with our Jazz Band, I have had the opportunity to listen to them on several different occasions - and I must tell you, their sound is hot! Congrats to the Jazz Band on such a great year of great sounding gigs - the chops on these 7th graders is impressive. Thanks to their very wonderful teacher Mrs. Jenkins, they have blossomed as aspiring young jazz musicians!

A Rewarding Afternoon

Wednesday, MEHMS Students with perfect attendance at tutorials had the opportunity to take the afternoon off and attend the Nationals afternoon game vs. Phillies. This was a popular game among other middle schools as our seats were in the sea of middle school students. Everyone who went had a great time - despite the heat!