Welcome Back to School from Monique Beels, Superintendent of Clawson Public Schools

Welcome back to school. It was nice meeting and talking with some of you on curriculum night at both of our elementary schools, middle school and high school. I wanted to share with you the theme I discussed with our teachers on their first day back to school and their responses. I am also asking you for your help. The three themes I focused on are:

What we have

What we can control

What we do

First of all what we have is each other.  We have each other for support, as a resource for  problem solving and friendship. When I asked our teachers the question “What are we doing right?” the overwhelming answer was, we care about kids, we care about each other and we care about learning. I want you to remember that we have each other and we care about your children.

Second is what we can control. I have learned that how I show up matters. When I was a high school science teacher my attitude made a difference to my students and affected how well they learned in my classroom. As a school administrator how I showed up mattered to the overall climate in the school. Positive interactions with our kids, teachers and parents change the atmosphere in our schools. When the teachers were asked what we need to stop doing, the overall response was to stop complaining and stop making excuses. What I’m asking you to do is change the conversations at our schools and local events to positive ones. Talk about something positive happening with our schools, classrooms, teachers and learning.

Finally what we do, what is our mission and purpose? Our children need skills in science, technology, engineering and math. They need to be able to communicate effectively through writing and speaking. Students need to have the skills to synthesize all the information from different sources to make decisions about their lives and the lives of others.  Kids need to be literate about different cultures and respect others who are different from themselves. Finally, students need to know themselves and how to persevere when times get tough and work becomes harder, so they can develop the drive to succeed in all aspects of life.

Remember what our mission and our purpose is “To ensure optimal learning for all students” Please help with this mission be emailing your responses of the following 3 questions to monique.beels@clawson.k12.mi.us 

What are we doing right?

What do we need to stop doing?

What are we doing that we could be doing differently?

I look forward to receiving your input and working together. If you have any other questions or comments please feel free to contact me. My door is always open.

Sincerely,

Monique Beels
Superintendent of Clawson Public Schools