Open Letter from the Superintendent

August 14, 2001

Dear Colleague:

As your new Superintendent, it is my pleasure to welcome you to the 2001-2002 school year.  Through our combined efforts, dedicated and focused hard work, this will be an extraordinarily productive and satisfying school year for our students, their families, our community, and all of us.

I began my duties in Freeport on Monday, July 2^nd.  During the past month and a half, I have enjoyed the opportunity to meet with members of the faculty and staff, administrators, parents, public officials, religious leaders and members of the community at large.  I have already been assisted by the Freeport Library and had the opportunity to participate in an important community-based, church-sponsored reading and recreation program serving hundreds of Freeport students.  Through all of those meetings, it is certainly clear to me that the one aspiration we share in common is the welfare and intellectual, social and personal growth of students.  It is towards those ends that I have committed my life’s work.

Over the course of my 55 years, I have lived in the states of Minnesota, New York, Massachusetts, Illinois and Colorado.  Professionally, I have served as a high school teacher (history/economics), high school head football coach, project director, high school assistant principal, high school athletic director, middle school principal, high school principal, central office administrator, superintendent of schools and district superintendent (BOCES).  I have earned academic degrees from the University of Minnesota, Duluth (cum laude); University of Colorado; and the Harvard Graduate School of Education.  I have two grown and college-educated daughters who live in the Denver, Colorado area.  I look forward to talking with you about any of the experiences or locations we share in common.

As I look ahead to the academic year, I recognize that I have much yet to learn about the Freeport schools and the community.  I acknowledge and join with you in celebrating the substantive work and the gains in student achievement in recent years.  I also see clearly that there is much yet to do to sustain those gains and accelerate the learning for all students.  The better our students perform, the more difficult becomes the task of continuing to extend academic growth in significant and measurable ways.  From the conversations I have had to date, I am confident that we are all up to that task.  I know that each of our students is capable of enormous intellectual, social and personal growth.  Although we all contribute to the mission in different ways, it is our job individually and collectively to see that every student reaches his or her intellectual, social and personal potential.

This year’s calendar provides one preparatory day following Labor Day and prior to the students’ first day of attendance.  I ask that all members of the faculty and staff join me at Freeport High School for a light breakfast and opening meeting on Tuesday, September 4^th.  A continental-style breakfast will be available beginning at 7:30 a.m.  I will ask that you be seated in the front section of the high school auditorium by 8:30 a.m. so that we can begin promptly and conclude not later than 9:30 a.m.  At that time, members of the faculty and staff should report to their respective schools and work sites.  I know that we all have much to do for the opening of school and, in respect for your time, it is my goal to begin the formal program promptly at 8:30 a.m.

Throughout the school year and particularly during the first several months, you will hear much about “Project Save.”  As you know, Project Save is the State legislation which required Codes of Conduct and School/Building Safety Plans to be developed and implemented.  Last year, a committee, broadly representative of our stakeholders, assembled a draft plan that was presented to the Board of Education on August 8, 2001.  You and members of our community will have a chance to offer your feedback on those plans prior to Board adoption in the fall.  Certainly maintaining safe and orderly environments in standard and emergency situations is of critical importance to all of us.  I will ask that you become familiar with all of this, and I invite you to offer your thoughts and feedback.  Copies of the plans and forms for feedback are available in your building.

I am genuinely excited about working with you.  Together we will advance the learning of our students.  Some of us are directly involved in instruction.  Others provide support to students, or teachers, or families.  Some of us work very much behind-the-scenes keeping our facilities operating, materials in supply, and addressing the needs of the public relative to its schools.  Regardless of our roles, it is the quality of our collective actions that generates the greatest benefit for our students and community.  I will always appreciate your high energy.  Further, I encourage your best thinking and communications about how we can be more effective and efficient as we advance the district’s goals and continue to build a pattern of success in the district that will be the envy of Long Island, the State of New York and our nation.

For those of you who are not already back to work, please enjoy the remainder of the summer.  For those of us who are working, I thank you for your efforts to prepare for the school year and maintain high quality operations during this busy period.  In any case, I look forward to meeting with you as we move toward the first day of academic classes and effective caring instruction.

Sincerely,

Eric L. Eversley, Ed.D.
Superintendent of Schools