District Leadership

Happy Teacher Appreciation Week!  During Teacher Appreciation Week we celebrate all of our staff who work tirelessly to support our students and their families each and every day.  

Other professions are able to exist because of the education profession!  Each student and adult knows a teacher who has impacted and influenced their lives. One of my most memorable teachers was Mr. Bailey, who taught English, Literature, and Geography classes when I was in high school. Mr. Bailey was the individual who taught me about literary themes and symbolism. To discover the hidden meanings in an author’s work was so exciting. There are so many layers to an accomplished author’s work that sometimes it still takes several readings to really appreciate and understand what is being conveyed.

As Mr. Bailey was to me, each of you also plays an important role in a student’s life. The world of knowledge you unveil to them every day, the relationships that you develop with them, and putting boundaries and high expectations in place so they know the desired direction are all so critical.  You have the power and the ability to take our students beyond what they can imagine and the outcomes of that work are evident.

Thank you for your passion, commitment, and expertise.  Educators truly invest in the most important mission and profession in the world.

The safety situation that occurred at Emporia High School Wednesday morning, right as students and staff were getting ready to begin their day following a late start morning, was addressed quickly and professionally. Our students were proactive in communicating vital information with the administration and our staff jumped into action when the announcement was made that EHS was going into a Level 2 lockdown. Simultaneously, our police department responded in record time, secured the area around the school, and located the suspects.  Many of our staff and administrators are parents and all of them have families but they put themselves in potential harm’s way to keep all of our students and staff safe. That was their first reaction - to think about how to protect our students and staff - before themselves.  

We love our students, staff, and administrators and appreciate everything they did Wednesday morning.  Can we improve on what we do?  Always.  Safety and Security at any school district is multi-layered, very detailed, and complicated. We are humans working with humans but we do the absolute best we can to ensure procedures are in place to keep everyone safe. Every single hour of every single day.  

I am fortunate to lead this amazing district that is full of amazing people.  Each one of our students, staff, and administrators would do what our EHS students, staff, and administrators did Wednesday morning to keep everyone safe and we do everything we can to keep future events from occurring. Please reach out to one another to say thank you for your commitment to students and to each other.  Each of you is the reason that Emporia Public Schools is the best place to work, live and learn!

On Thursday, February 16th, a survey was sent to all staff members asking for input on what is going well, what we can do better, and what keeps Emporia Public Schools staff in our district. As you are each likely experiencing, we are still getting our footing after a pandemic, staffing changes, scrutiny of public education as a whole by the legislature, and other recent changes. It can be difficult to maintain our focus on students but that is what all of you do best. You develop relationships with students as individuals and keep their success at the forefront of your decisions and passion for education. 

Your input about what keeps you in Emporia Public Schools is important because we care about you, our students, and success for everyone. Other districts are also dealing with challenges but our district is the one for which we care the most. The Stay Survey responses are anonymous so you can provide your honest feedback. The input will be reviewed by district and building level leaders to help inform priorities, increase our retention, and to better recruit high-quality candidates for open positions. A key goal these next few months is to finalize the IBB process so staff members begin the 2023-2024 school year with a negotiated agreement that outlines current salaries, benefits, etc. rather than finalizing the process during the same year that staff are working. 

Each one of you is important to our students, parents, community, colleagues, and leadership. As we move into this week for Parent/Teacher Conferences, we know that parents look forward to visiting with you about their student’s accomplishments and areas for growth. Best wishes on successful meetings this week! Thank you for your commitment to students, Emporia Public Schools, and for taking the time to provide your valuable input.

Happy American Education Week! This is a wonderful opportunity to reflect on all of the reasons that our educators are AWESOME! 

There are many reasons Emporia Public Schools educators are awesome and I will highlight several here. Our educators know how important it is to develop caring, trusting relationships with our students, colleagues, parents, and community. Our educators innately understand that every student who walks through our doors needs to be loved and valued and immediately begins developing positive connections with them. Our educators know that each student needs and deserves the quality education they receive through Emporia Public Schools. 

There is no other profession in which almost every single adult can name a teacher or another educator who made a lasting impact on their lives, influencing them in the decisions of paths they later chose. Educators are always thinking about what they can do differently or better to help their students. Educators’ students live in their memories many years after they have left their classes. Education is the profession that deserves to be held up and celebrated this week and every week of the year. 

Education is the profession that students know with absolute confidence that their teachers and all educators are ROCK STARS and deserving of their awe and admiration. Thank you, Emporia Public School Educators, for your dedication and commitment to every single student, every single day. You deserve to be celebrated! 

Thank you to all of our staff members for the important work you do with all of our students. We are individuals who come together to make up a great team. All of you make all of us #EmporiaProud!

Remember when you were a kid with great big dreams and the world was wide open with anticipation? Those dreams may have been especially rich during the summers and holidays when there was more time to reflect and there was excitement in the air. This may have also been a time when you also thought about how cool it would be when you grew up and you could buy all of the Fudge Stripe cookies you wanted and eat them whenever you wanted - for breakfast, late at night…whenever! We found out as we moved into adulthood that dreams were not as easily achieved as they appeared in movies, in books or in our imaginations. We also found out that, yes, we could buy all the cookies we wanted and eat them whenever we wanted but doing that might make our waistbands tighten more than we wanted and our faces break out. 

As educators and staff members working in a school district, keeping our dreams alive has been a challenge these last few years. Even experiencing a school year that is as “normal” (if there ever was a true definition of normal) as it has been for a while, it can still be difficult to remember those dreams and we should not have to dig that deep for something that should be fun and empowering. I believe that dreams often equate to hope. When we dream and hope about great opportunities or the future coming our way, we walk a little lighter on our feet, smile a little brighter, and laugh more often. 

Let’s keep those dreams and hopes alive for what we want for our students, our classrooms, our schools, our district, and our community. Consider sharing your dreams and hopes with each other. Ask students to share their dreams with you and their classmates. There can never be a dream that is too big or a hope that is too strong. Hearing those positive beliefs through our students’ eyes helps take us back to times when we also more easily believed in the magic of the future. 

We have the most amazing staff members who work in Emporia Public Schools. You are loved and valued for the work you do with students and for students each and every day. I know that you are working hard to make a difference. Keep your dreams and hopes alive for yourself, our students, our schools, and our district. We need you and our students need you - with your big, 

wonderful dreams. Thank you for everything you do - what people can see and what you do when no one is watching to make our world a better place.