Hello Friends, It is late October and this year continues to be full of surprises, some good and some concerning, but all of them presenting us with opportunities. As we began the school year, our NYS assessment scores were fresh in our minds and we looked at how do we learn from them. As I wrote you back in April assessments are tools to see where children are, not a means to sell papers. This year in particular with the first assessment of the common core shift, many schools achieved far below their capability and, while we performed better than many, we too did not achieve what we know our students’ potential is. The real question then becomes, how do we grow from here? The answer is easy, we look at the data that we receive; we work with our students to capitalize on their strengths, offering strategies to help them work through their challenges and educate everyone involved in our children’s learning, school, home and child. The next big surprise that we are faced with this year is the continuing Journey of Faith and Grace in the Diocese of Buffalo and the announcement that through a school revitalization and reorganization process several Catholic schools in the Diocese of Buffalo will be closing their doors at the end of this academic year. As I have stated before, we are not in danger of closing, but this revitalization process does offer us the opportunity for a full evaluation of our programs and the chance to begin anew again. Thus, we have begun a committee to look over our programs and determine exactly what our specialty is and how we can improve that particular facet of our school. Therefore, I ask that if you have any thoughts, please share them with me through either phone or e-mail. Finally, the biggest, most pressing and recurring issue this year is the continuing rash of school place violence that we are seeing in the United States. Over the last several years, DeSales has made many strides in improving the safety of our students, faculty and staff. Our first initiative was to move our Main Office in 2011 to its new location essentially allowing our staff a direct line of sight to the main entrance and all who enter. Our next steps occurred simultaneously, we undertook a complete overhaul of our Incident Response Plan (IRP) and had an outside organization complete a thorough safety/threat analysis of our campus, plans, procedures and systems. Additionally, with the beginning of the 2013~2014 school year DeSales families are assessed a $60 per child security fee to help augment the security features already in place. Currently we have a school safety committee that is charged with constantly reviewing our IRP as well as making recommendations as to how to best implement suggestions from our safety/threat analysis. I have spent a great deal of time writing about some of the negatives that are occurring in our lives so I would like to leave you with a cute little story. If you ask any educator, any real educator, why they went into this profession you will hear some variation of the following; I want to help children, I love when they finally understand it, the “ah ha” moment. Well, I have been blessed over my career to see this repeatedly. That moment when a child smiles and we know that they are happy because they get it and today was no exception. Today one of my colleagues came up to me and said I should have heard my kids today. They said of me that it was so cool that I was smiling. One particular little girl said, Dr. Fike must be really happy. All I can say is “Yes Virginia there is a Santa Claus and Yes, I am happy. I get to work with our future everyday and it is a pleasure. Thank you for that gift. God Bless, Scott