MaRCh MADneSs...

-
'Tis the season where madness abounds!! We are crazed about college basketball, Spring is springing, snow day giveback days, our days are longer and our longest continuous stretch of school weeks without a vacation is in full swing. The reasons for anyone to go crazy at this time of year is bountiful. Throughout school, you can sense the tension increasing as we worry about time running out, state assessments on the horizon, AP exams coming in a few short weeks, and the biggest burden for many, graduation. For many of our seniors, the reality that their public education is coming to an end is becoming real. Also, for some of those young adults, the fear of the unknown and/or not knowing what they are doing after high school is even more frightening. These children, for the first time in their lives, will lose one of the greatest support systems and constants that we have to offer; the fear is real.

From all of the craziness we develop stress. Our kids are stressed, parents are stressed, and staff is stressed. Frequently in our schools, many people make decisions and portray actions that we normally would not display due to this stress. Concurrently, many of us are watching young adults handle the stress and pressure of a basketball championship from afar. Upsets abound this weekend! Why? Because those athletes have found a way to harness their fear and used it for positive energy rather than negative. Our best athletes find a way to take stress and fear and convert it to confidence. This confidence creates what many deem unforeseen performances and upsets, but to the athletes it is simply another day. We need to find a way to have this mentality in our schools. Convert our stress and fear to confidence. Be that analogy of the duck swimming in the water. It is our responsibility as adults to show our kids that fear of the unknown and stress can in fact lead to the pathway of our dreams. We just need to have enough madness to dare to face those fears.

Black Knight Kudos ...

Congratulations to Shawna House, Amanda Keane, Rockia Ricketts, Ian Pisaneschi, Ashley Blanchard for being inducted into the National Technical Honor Society!!

Congratulations to the students from Fermata Nowhere and our Select Choir for their performance on Friday night with Barry Manilow. You made RFA and the city of Rome proud!!

Congratulations to Zach Carrier, Aaron Internicola, Marybeth Flick, and Sidnee Lenaghen for receiving the Rome Chamber Character Initiative Award!!

"PAIR"ents Partnership ...

During the coming weeks and months there is a lot that your student may stress from and/or attempt to avoid. Twelfth grade students especially have the unique ability to develop "senioritis" as we all love to call it. All of us adults have been there at one point or another in lives so we know that the feeling of almost being done is real. However, it's not just twelfth grade students that can develop habits of avoidance and apathy during the last weeks of school. There are many reasons why kids display negative behaviors toward the end of the year; exams, completion of assignments, promotion in grade, summer, and many more. If you see anything that concerns you with your student, don't hesitate to contact his or her school counselor, or another school person. We all need to work together to help our children be successful. 

This Week at RFA...

3/21 - Area 51 Meeting
3/21 - Cheer Leading Dinner
3/22 - Key Club Meeting
3/22 - District Attendance Committee Meeting
3/22 - National Technical Honor Society Meeting, BOCES
3/23 - College Planning Workshop
3/23 - Symphony Orchestra Field Trip to Elementary Schools
3/23 - Mock Trial Field Trip to Utica Courthouse
3/24 - Jack Hirsch Hypnosis Show
3/25 - No School

Worth the Read...

Take a Moment to Self Reflect and Grow...

What does it take to be different? There are roughly 13 weeks left in our school year, during that time, attempt 1 new thing that makes the lives of your students better and attempt 1 new thing that makes your life easier. Differences come in many shapes and sizes, you don't have to make a huge change in order to make a huge difference. Challenge yourself and be the change you want to see...

Popular posts from this blog

It Takes A Village...

-
Image
 We all know the old phrase, "it takes a village to raise a child." One can reflect on the phrase and find a few different ways to interpret its meaning, however, it cannot be argued that when groups of people work together to help their children grow, success is more likely. To me, I view this phrase as referencing that there is someone within every community that a child can connect with to help them feel a part of their school and/or community. It may not be their classroom teacher or their principal. It may be a bus driver, a coach, a teaching assistant, secretary, custodian, food service worker, music teacher, art teacher, computer specialist, monitor, etc. The list can go on and on. Why mention this? Well, currently, one of the largest and most important educational research projects in our nation's history is occurring with some of the leading educational experts researching what education needs to be by the year 2025. Education 2025 is producing information that m...
Read more

When One Door Opens, Many More Follow...

-
Image
One of the hardest things to do in life is to deal with change. There is that old saying, "When one door closes, another door opens." I wonder though, why does a door have to close for another to open. Why can't many doors open when someone decides to go through a new door? I am about to embark on a new professional journey in the coming weeks and I refuse to think that the building that I have helped to lead over the past 3 years is going to be a closed door. Instead, I can think of thousands of opportunities that have been opened because of my decision to walk through a new door. I think of all of the people that have touched my life (students, staff, and parents) and I honestly don't see why a door has to close. Instead of that thinking, I choose to think that thousands of doors are opened now with all of the amazing people that I have had the opportunity to lead. The lessons that have been learned, the friendships that have developed, and the opportunities tha...
Read more

I Had A Dream...

-
Image
Once upon a time, when we all began our careers or started a new position/school, we had dreams. Dreams of what we wanted to accomplish, dreams we wanted to see our students accomplish, dreams we wanted to see our school communities achieve. Throughout my travels though, I have seen more adults tell students that should lower their expectations and downsize their dreams. Unfortunately, I would say that the ratio of adults encouraging students and adults discouraging students is close to 1:1 in my career. I ask, would you be where you are today without someone throughout your educational life encouraging you to pursue your dreams? As with many things in our schools, we need to focus on the positives that are happening and capitalize on them. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had a dream for our country, and while his dream was related to equal rights and oppression, his intended message of having a dream and working tirelessly to achieve it can be applied universally in society. Recently, ...
Read more