Schools are that one place in our community where all of us come together to learn…

Our classrooms become for us the place we acquire so many of the skills and capabilities that provide the foundation for who we become as adults and how we live our lives.

We learn about capital cities and new languages and how to solve equations in school.  We learn how to think for ourselves, how to make friends and be kind, and how to resolve conflict.  We learn how to care about excellence and doing well. We learn how to write and to persuade, how to sing and how to give a speech. We learn how to be in charge of ourselves, how to be persistent, and how to be resilient. We learn how to solve all kinds of problems, and how to ask for help when we get stuck. 

Education provides us with the means to transform our lives.

The smallest interaction we have in school – a conversation with a teacher, a book we read, a science class we ace, a friend we make – can change us forever. We can take risks and make mistakes (sometimes big ones) and learn from them, too.

No matter where and how our kids start in our schools, what matters is where they finish.  It’s our job to make our schools the pathway that get our students ready for the rest of their lives.  This happens when school systems, teachers and administrators, work with students, families, local government and the community at large.   

The Harrisonburg public school system is a special and unique place, with distinct challenges and remarkable opportunities to send our graduates prepared to live in the world as it is today, carrying with them an appreciation of the past and a delight in what the future offers to us all.   I want to do everything I can to support those efforts, for our kids, our schools, and our communities.