Friday Focus
April 8, 2016
I was inspired yesterday by Marci’s email about us telling our story on Monday the 11th as part of #LoveMySchoolDay, because the quotes she used were so true. There are a lot of haters on public education out there and they have too much money to know what is good for them. They have enormous pulpits to speak from and plenty of legislators lined up as their yes men, so we have to fight back on the negativity. Please be sure to take the time to stand up for Hallsville schools, teachers across the country, and yourself. We really need the parents, our community residents, and the local business to understand what it is we do all day everyday to make Hallsville a better place by providing them with what we actually do everyday. When your child or every child on the planet comes home and is asked “what did you do today?,” what is the response every time? NOTHING! These parents have to think all we do is waste their kids time if we do nothing all day long 9 months a year. We have to change the message by getting our side of the story out there more. Show them what you are doing in class, communicate with them directly on how they can help at home, and brag on yourself.
At the conference last week, we learned a lot about message and what parents want to hear. When it boils down to it, they want to know their child is safe, cared about, and engaged everyday. We need to assure them that we are doing that and at a very high level in Hallsville. Post pictures of an activity on your social media, send home an email with what is going on in class, ask Marci to help you with classroom PR, or get on the rooftop and shout it. The message is controlled by who talks the most and the loudest usually. We need to make sure it is the positive people that get the most attention and not the people out to destroy public education. Help us be the loudest and most positive voice for children.
After proofing that, I have to apologize for the large number of series used to make my point, but I refuse to apologize for using an Oxford comma in every one. I even put 3 punctuations in a row. I wasn’t sure if ?,” was correct in that sentence, but I wasn’t going to figure it out at 1:30 on Friday.