Dear School Community Colleagues,

The title of this monthly newsletter was borrowed from Jim Collins’ book, Good to Great.  In the book, Mr. Collins wrote about the qualities and characteristics that cause some organizations to make the leap to greatness while others don’t.  I have referred to Collins’ work on a number of occasions and District leaders have read and reflected on the book regularly.

On the first day of the 2008-09 school year in September, we as a district celebrated our previous successes and also recognized some of our outstanding staff.  At our school opening, one could argue that we have become a “great” school district.  However, if we look a little deeper and are honest with ourselves, we would conclude that we have some elements of greatness but still have work ahead to truly become an excellent school system.  We can not consider ourselves as excellent, as long we accept mediocrity from some of our students and in certain elements of the organization.

Defining excellence is an elusive notion. In schools it can take many forms and be determined in many ways.  The question is important because the way we define excellence dictates the way we achieve it.

Much has been written about the three R’s in education.  In the 1960’s, the three R’s stood for (r)eading, (w)riting and (a)rithmetic.  In the 1990’s the three R’s were substituted by rigor, relevance and relationships.  Recently, Robert Sternberg referred to the three R’s as reasoning, resilience and responsibility.  Regardless as to how we label what we do in school, we must focus on excellence in education for all of our students. The numbers and recognition should emerge as a result of seeking excellence rather than be an end in and of themselves.

If we truly want to achieve excellence, we must continue to build on our understanding of how children learn best and implement best practices in the field related to our instructional framework.  We must concentrate on all students and teach them how to be active, productive and successful citizens in a rapidly changing world.  I believe we have the talent to meet this objective; we must also have the will.