Dear Colleagues,

Opening days always occupy a special place on our calendars. Whether it’s the beginning of the New Year, the opening day of Major League Baseball, or the first day of school, there’s always a great excitement when something begins anew. At that moment, perfection is in sight, possibilities are endless, and energy is high. Potential stands ready to be unleashed.

That happens to be the driving theme of our newly-updated strategic plan, Horizon 2020. It is a blueprint for unleashing each student’s potential, but it applies more broadly than that. The new school year is a time to unleash not only the potential of our students but of everyone who serves our students — principals and their support team, teachers and staff and professionals in transportation, technology, building services and child nutrition.

And this indeed is a very special year. Our Design 2015 projects bring school staff together around the themes of creativity, critical thinking, communication and collaboration as we explore, develop and share instructional models, redesigned learning spaces, and interactive technology applications. Our strategic plan has one student-centered goal: All Albemarle County Public School students will graduate having actively mastered the lifelong-learning skills they need to succeed as 21st century learners, workers and citizens.

In meeting this highly ambitious standard, our new year offers specific opportunities for students including the continuing enhancement of all of our media centers/libraries as contemporary learning spaces, an expansion of our highly successful pilot program in computer coding and a more firmly embedded use of engineering and design principles in project work. These opportunities also encompass the debut of a middle school advanced manufacturing lab and the development of a new center of excellence academy in Environmental Studies, adding to the extraordinary accomplishments of our teachers and students in the MESA and Health and Medical Sciences academies.

And while these and other headline initiatives will continue to receive notice, what really gives me great confidence about this year is the work that does not draw headlines but is vital to our success in meeting our strategic goal for every student. Every day educators bring ingenuity and excellence to our 900 classrooms, a commitment to creating pathways to learning for all children. In our transportation department, drivers transport our students so safely while driving 14,000 miles per day. The same high commitment to excellence exists among the child nutrition employees who serve more than 1.3 million healthy meals per year and the building service professionals who efficiently maintain and improve 2.3 million square feet of facilities each year.

There is a line from a Simon & Garfunkel classic, “Sail on Silver girl, all your dreams are on their way.” Let’s dream about all the possibilities of what our children can accomplish when their potential is unleashed. Let’s value our work as members of the most important profession in the world. Let’s celebrate the imaginations and learning capacities of all our learners.

Our children’s creativity is the fuel that long has energized America’s inventors and entrepreneurs, its patent-makers, backyard mechanics, artists and athletes, its engineers, doctors and scientists, its designers, builders, and most especially, its visionaries. And while celebrating opening days is an American tradition, we should celebrate one that’s even more important: bringing to our work a fierce passion for ensuring the next generation always will be better than the one it follows.

Happy New Year!

Pam