The Kind of Letter

This is the letter my husband sent his staff. He sent it my way and I'm enjoying it.

At my site ........well let's save that for another day.

August 31, 2007


Dear [...] School Staff,

Thank you for another exceptionally smooth and positive first week of
school. Attendance was excellent. Attention to tasks and the work of
studenting was very high this week. Thanks to [...] and all our
new staff for working with continuing staff in such a collaborative
manner and thanks to everyone for helping [...] feel like such a
welcoming and positive place for students and families to learn and
create community.

This year, as has been the case in the last several years, our
greatest challenge rests in helping all our students achieve the
highest possible levels of academic achievement as well as social and
emotional connectedness to our school and the basic process of
learning and education. This year's API scores are attached to this
letter and represent the first year in some time and the first year
in my entire administrative career, that our school has not made
improvements in the academic areas measured by the CST tests.

I am challenging every member of this community to draw upon their
internal and external resources and commitment to work together to
help the approximately 40% of [...] students who have yet to achieve
proficiency in reading and mathematics as based on CST exams to
achieve this goal as soon as possible. I am challenging every member
of this community to take on this task while simultaneously seeking
improvement and growth for all students including those who are
already proficient.

Today was my father's birthday. He would have been 72 today, though
he passed way far to early at the age of 51. He was the son of two
Italian immigrants. Both died before he turned one year old. An
immigrant aunt who had no formal education and little English skills
raised him. Remarkably talented and intelligent, she managed to learn
to read, raise a family, and run a business, among many other great
achievements. Her son, my father, also a very intelligent person,
caught between a language at home and a language at school, managed
to graduate high school, raise a family, and be successful in work
though he was never very successful in school. All his children were
and so likely will their grandchildren be.

Our challenge is to support all students, and especially those like
my father. So smart, but never really that good at school. 546 out of
a class of 547 at McKinley Tech High School in Washington D.C., the
same school Elgin Baylor of Laker fame went. My father never really
got algebra. Failed it 4 times or so he said yet his granddaughters
and grandsons do calculus with little trouble. My father, who I never
really saw read a book, could do the NY Times crossword every Sunday
in the time it took to drink a cup of coffee.
Our challenge is to find new metaphors for our work, for learning,
for schooling that really work for all students, not that are the
same for every student, but that help every student achieve their
real potential. Sports metaphors have always worked for me because I
grew up in them. My father was a coach, often my coach. He was very
successful in this endeavor, for the most part, because he knew how
to help people be the best they could be and because he always looked
out for the underdog. He knew how to conjure a team.

I am asking each member of the staff to consider setting goals in
their work that will help accomplish group goals for our school. I am
also asking [...], the leadership team, our new coordinators,
and all teachers to establish percentage based goals for proficiency
on CST in English Language Arts and Mathematics for the 2008
administration of the CSTs as well as a goal for the 2008 API. I look
forward to receiving these goals before the upcoming September board
meeting when we will adopt these goals along with those established
and developed by the community during the summer.

As you can tell from this letter, I am thinking of my father today. A
heroic figure to me in my early youth, later a source for my
rebellion, and lately an ever emergent aspect of self. My father,
were he here today, would be happy that I first, had a job, that
second, I had a family I loved, and that third, I was doing work that
mattered. I would tell him, if he was here, that I work at about the
best place there is as far as public schools go and that I am trying
to win the pennant with a team part Washington Senators part New York
Yankees. He'd like that. He'd say that sounds like a fun task and a
lot of work.

Thank you again for a great first week, I look forward to great
things during the remaining 175 days of the 2007/08 school year.

Sincerely,

John Puglisi
Superintendent
Vern's son