Teachers and staff keeping their fingers on the pulse of all that is happening is an annual challenge in schools. This year that challenge has certainly increased. However, through our challenges, our successes and celebrations become powerful markers of our progress. This week's examples include the graduation of two young men, Michael Valdez and Adrian Sanchez, who have overcome significant challenges to close the final chapter of their K-12 schooling experience as new Uvalde CISD and Crossroads Academy graduates. Their individual pathways to success become maps for their peers and families to follow and grow from. We hope and fully expect that our community of Uvalde will also see the benefits of their success through the positive contributions we expect that they will bring moving forward.

This week we also celebrated our Winter Wonderland festival, which was an after school parent/family event that was put together by our Crossroads Academy ACE team, the beyond generous support of Sugar Hill Church, and our full staff and student body. Sugar Hill Church brought out a group of approximately twenty volunteers from their congregation who made the trek from the Atlanta, Georgia area community. This group has adopted our campus and been a wonderful blessing as we strive to grow and improve our service to our students and community.