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Reflection & A Tip of the Cap
Reflection & A Tip of the Cap
A letter from Superintendent, Dr. Mike Redmond
2020-21 continues to be a school year unlike any other. Contributing to making this a verydifferent school year is the context in which we’ve been working to serve our students andcommunity. Since the first day of school, we’ve been navigating a pandemic. I want to turn myattention away from that context to the amazing efforts of our team of employees working forShakopee Public Schools to serve our students, their families and our community.
From my perspective in the role of Superintendent, I get to have a real ‘behind the scenes’ look at what the members ofthe Shakopee Public Schools team are doing to provide the highest level of quality service to our students andcommunity. Starting last summer, I was fortunate to watch a group of teachers, staff members, principals, districtleaders, school board members and others come together, and in an amazingly short period of time, to create plans forthis coming school year. In the span of a few weeks, they did the type of work that would typically take months or yearsto complete. Did we get everything exactly right in this planning process? Of course not. It’s impossible to be perfectwhen planning with so many unknowns. That said, I’m amazed at how much of the planning this group ‘got right’.
I attribute the quality of their work to always putting service and the needs of our students at the forefront of each partof the plans.
Helping students learn is incredibly challenging work in the best of times and in the steadiest of settings. Adding a series of unpredictable events into a school year makes the work even more challenging.
Unless a person has walked in the shoes of a teacher, or other jobs in education, I don’t really think a person can fully understand the amount of planning, energy, care, patience, compassion and sheer effort that goes into doing the job well.
I have a friend who is a software engineer, and is a very intelligent and successful individual. Every once in a while, heused to make an occasional disparaging remark about how easy teaching would be. My response to him was alwaysthat I could arrange for him to come in and teach for a week. I would also add that I didn’t think he could make it foreven a week as a teacher. Even though he’s very intelligent and hard working, he simply isn’t cut out to do the job ofteaching.
Thankfully, we have lots of educators on our team who are cut out to do the job. They’re so good at what they do, theyhave been able to provide terrific learning experiences in the challenging situations presented during the 2020-21school year. Please join me in a ‘tip of the cap’ and a show of appreciation for our teachers, our staff members and allthe other members of our team. From my perspective, what they’ve been able to do this school year is nothing shortof amazing.
Superintendent, Mike Redmond