I’m a big believer in history and pausing at least for a second and looking backwards.
Today’s the start of semester two, which means we ended semester one.
Semester one was a very, very challenging semester. And I think we need to recognize that because there’s some issues that we are seeing as a result of that.
Just pause and take a moment to reflect.
In August and September, we saw an exponential, remarkable increase in the number of school threats that disrupted many of our schools and their academic time daily in the months of August and September.
By the grace of God, those numbers seem to be going down. It is still a challenge. But it was at a crisis level in those first two months.
That brought us into October, where we had back-to-back hurricanes, where school was closed in essence, for almost two weeks straight. As you know, when you close school for two weeks straight, you lose routine. You lose rhythm. You lose kind of discipline structures.
We have to start all that back up, which brought us right into the holidays of Thanksgiving and Christmas.
We experienced significant disruptions during semester one. And our student data is showing that.
Our student data is showing that our students need stability. They need classroom time. Our teachers need to be able to support and block out that distraction.
As we head into semester two, we have time. We have time to make up those academic losses, if you will. But we have to lock arms and we have to work together to commit to allow our teachers to be in those classrooms to focus on what matters most – student learning – especially in the second semester.
The reason why Is there is no semester three. This is it. For many of our students, this is the time. This is graduation time. This is the opportunity for achievement. This is acceleration time.
I’m mentioning that to you because semester one was a challenge filled with distractions. I hope all of us, and I know we will, but let’s work together to protect that learning time in semester two.
Support our teachers, so they can focus on what matters most. And that’s our student learning.
Superintendent John Legg made these remarks Jan. 13 during the Pasco County Schools school board meeting.
