Principal’s Corner by Diane Schultz

As I sat down to write this column, I couldn’t help but reflect back on my life as a student, a teacher, a parent and a principal. The key component of all of these stages has been the relationships that I have had with kids, adults, parents, staff and the communities in which I have lived.

Our students are in the beginning stages of this journey of life. What can we do to ensure that we are creating strong, caring, compassionate, life-long learners?

Building relationships with students is a priority. It is important for us to know our students and what needs they have in order to be successful. Students’ developmental needs are the foundation of the choices that we make as we organize, schedule and what we do in our everyday practices. These needs remain at the center of our decisions.

One way that we build strong relationships and create strong community with classrooms and our school is through the use of morning meetings. These meetings give our children a daily consistent time to explore and practice social skills to merge social, emotional and intellectual learning.

Once a month we gather as a building to have an all-school meeting. This meeting focuses on our school-wide behavior expectations and everyday hero theme for the month.

We have a monthly building-wide morning meeting called Sibley families. Each adult staff member has a group of about 12 to 15 students of all levels, K-5. These Sibley families have created another group of students and adults for our kids to have a relationship with in their days at Sibley.

In closing, I want to encourage all parents to reach out in any way you can so we can build a strong relationship with each other to create success for your child/children.

Diane Schultz is the principal of Sibley Elementary School.