Welcome back to school North Metro GNETS parents, students, staff, leadership, and stakeholders! I hope each of you had an opportunity to relax, release, and get some much needed restorative rest. A new school year represents new beginnings, fresh starts, new professional relationships, and new opportunities to learn and grow as students and professionals in our North Metro GNETS Program.
Over the course of this past school year, the district team and I heard your concerns and we worked diligently over the summer to abide by your requests to reduce the amount of compliance related paperwork while also maintaining the best quality education for our students and families who are our first priority. Check….done!
Students and families, I heard your concerns regarding our teachers having more actively engaged, rigorous, standards-based, real-world, project-based classrooms, that increase student outcomes. This year, teachers and administrators will be provided with more job-embedded, professional development using the behavior skills training (BST) model to meet this need. Additionally, curriculum experts and stakeholders will be assisting our teachers by providing them with more actively engaged, specially designed instruction, modeled lessons that will help improve student outcomes. Check…done!
Stakeholders, thank you for continuing to support North Metro GNETS, our students, staff, and families and the work we do to meet the academic, behavioral, and therapeutic needs of our students. I’m truly appreciative of our collaborative relationships, our shared vision of high expectations for our students, our shared responsibilities in helping our students move from good to great, and your fiscal support. Without you, we would not be able to provide the abundance of services that we offer to our students and families.
Team as you prepare to be Day 1 ready to meet, greet, and serve our students, remember the strength of our North Metro GNETS team is each of you as individual team members. The strength of each of you as individual team members makes up our amazing team. “Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much”. – Helen Keller. Thank you for being a remarkable part of the North Metro Dream Team. Now, let the new school year begin and let’s do whatever it takes to help our students be self-sufficient, independent, confident, career-ready, diploma earning, contributing members of our community. Students, you can do anything you put your minds to. You’ve got this! I believe in you. Continue to practice mindfulness and trust and believe in yourselves. I look forward to working with each of you again this school year! Welcome Back!
Cassandra Allen Holifield, PhD