What Do You Believe are the Top 3 Factors Key for Student Success?

Resiliency: especially now, when the occurrence of adverse experiences is being felt across our city, our state, our nation, the ability for children to learn, adapt, and overcome the many obstacles that are in their way is essential for success.

Engagement: finding ways to make a connection with students and make them excited about learning, and the possibilities that an education can offer them is essential. Keeping in mind that this engagement/connection can take a variety of roles: whether it be in lesson planning, in simply talking with a student to let them know that they are important. Building professional and thoughtful relationships with students, whether it be the teachers, the administration or the board is key. And this has never been more important during COVID-19 and the requirement for distance learning. 

Equitable Opportunities: we want our students to envision themselves as graduates, as scholars, as successful adults. To do this, our curriculum, our policies, our school environments, including our teachers, staff and administration, must reflect the values of our community and the students must be able to “see” themselves reflected within our educational system. Students should also be provided with the means (technology, lessons, effective/quality teaching experiences, a variety of extracurricular options, etc) to harness their educational experiences; it is sad to me that there is a perceived and in some cases clear, imbalance between our schools resulting in some students having better/more than others.