First Day of School!

August 16, 2017 by Ryan Masa Leave a comment

Welcome everyone to the 2017-2018 school year! It was wonderful to see all the parents and students this morning. It’s always amazing how much students can grow since the last time we saw them!

We started our day with a K-8 assembly where we introduced new teachers, celebrated birthdays, talked about enrichments (4th grader Collin provided the overview), explained our This or That board, and described upcoming enrichments. We also had two students provide welcome addresses to our whole community. In addition to welcoming faculty, students and guests, Owen (8th grade) reminded us to say hi to all new students. Mairi (8th grade) also welcomed us and challenged both teachers and students to focus on advocacy this year. Mairi shared how advocating for what you need to succeed is a skill that is useful now, in high, in college and beyond. She also reminded students that Assets teachers are here to help and that students should allow them to do so. I’m proud and grateful for both Owen and Mairi kicking off our year with such wisdom and aloha.

Another highlight of assembly was when our Director of Development, Patti Almirez, told the crowd that everyone was getting their own hydro flask with the new Assets School logo on it! It was the closest we’ll probably ever come to having an “Oprah giveaway moment.”

Please remember that we have assembly every Friday morning at 8:00am and parents are always invited. Assembly usually takes 20 minutes.

While in class, students reconnected with old friends and started making new ones. Teachers led tours of campus so students could orient themselves and see where certain people are located, like the office staff, Mr. Powell and Nurse Barb. This is helpful to new and returning students because we’ve moved some people around over the summer in preparation of our impending campus construction (I’ll write to you in more detail about this soon). I also saw most classes tour our new school garden (I will dedicate a whole blog to this exciting new project soon too). I visited most classrooms today and I saw a lot of class meetings, class activities and peers helping each other out. One of my favorite parts of every new school year is watching returning students befriend new ones and make sure they are included in group work, at lunch and recess.