Welcome Back Imagineer Celebration!

At first, it sneaks up on you. You do not recognize it because it has been such a long time gone. It takes you some time. It has to literally fight its way through doubts and disappointments, fears and questions…many questions. But, as with many of the best things in life, it is at the moment when you feel the weakest that the biggest and most promising changes take place…

It is during this time that you begin to remember, again, what it was that brought you here to start with. Maybe there is the fleeting memory of a child’s smile, or the short visit of that feeling of triumph that comes when you hit your target and you see the light of understanding click on in your students’ eyes. It is starting to find its way to the top now…a small smile creeps across your own face…

Then come the butterflies in the pit of your stomach…the same ones, perhaps, that you felt way-back-when in your very first days in the classroom as a young student yourself…or as a beginning teacher…the very ones that your own students will feel in August. This is when you know that it has finally arrived and taken hold. There is the nervous feeling, but far more, there is possibility. It is the thing that keeps you coming back. It is the fuel that drives you forward. It is the fire that ignites your imagination.

Now, you find that you can only Imagine the Possibilities of this upcoming school year. There is nothing else. The possibilities of an inspired mind, a generous heart or a boundless spirit. The possibilities of an empty canvas, a freshly sharpened pencil, an unread book or a newly planted seed. The possibilities that can only come from exuberant youth lead in mass by tempered wisdom and steady knowledge. The possibilities that only our great and noble profession offers.

I invite you to your new laboratory of possibilities on August 11, 2005 at 7:50 am at Café Mayport. Please bring to share with your colleagues some representation of the possibilities that this year holds for our school –-get together with your grade level team and build a vision to share of possibilities that you will achieve TOGETHER (banner, model, skit, significant object, poem etc).. Mayport Elementary’s success will begin first with our Imagining the Possibilities together, then taking the Risks to put those possibilities into action through Rigorous application of best teaching practices so that we can ultimately see the Results in outstanding student achievement.

Mayport Elementary…Imagine the Possibilities !