Dear Gateway Community,
Welcome to the 2022-2023 school year! We hope that your summer break was filled with rest, relaxation and joy.
I am thrilled to be back for another year with a community that has grown tremendously and demonstrated resilience in the face of change and adversity. Last year, we made the commitment to “rebound from the setbacks caused by the COVID pandemic and years of racial, environmental and educational injustices”, and I can say without a doubt, we collectively accomplished a lot moving towards just that.
Like many schools, we wanted to reopen our school and have students feel seen, valued and loved. We also needed to ensure that the school had systems and procedures in place to address any health/COVID-related concerns. We were fortunate to have had a small but mighty team at GMS to help us get through our first post-distance learning year safely, and we received a ton of support and positive feedback!
This year, we will remain steadfast to our commitment to rebuild our GMS community from the continued ramifications of COVID-19 to the senseless violence we witness across the nation. In alignment with our core values–Community, Excellence, Responsibility, Respect, Anti-Racist/Pro-Black & Pro-People–our community will continue to do the imperative work of critical self-reflection and action-taking in service of creating an equitable, inclusive and joyful environment for all. We will continue to focus on improving academic and social-emotional learning outcomes for all of our students, especially those who have been most adversely affected by systems of oppression. Some of the ways we plan to accomplish this are as follows:
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Leverage our instructional coaches/subject area leads to build on and strengthen teachers’ Tier 1 instruction and classroom management practices with a restorative justice approach
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Create a joyful and academically rich environment for our students to have a greater sense of belonging at GMS by working with many external partners this year to ensure student mental health and well being is a priority as well as to equip and empower our students to lead the way in creating a safe and inclusive campus including: the BGCSF be a star program, Care Solace, School Safety Ambassador program, Healthy Initiatives for Youth and Challenge Day
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Refine the systems, policies and procedures that are currently in place to ensure they yield equitable outcomes for all students and are aligned with our RJ principles
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Increase family/caregiver involvement throughout the school year (pending Covid restrictions) by strengthening our connections and collaboration with families and hosting events for parents/caregivers to connect
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Retain all of our effective and values-aligned staff, especially those who identify as Black, Indigenous, or a Person of Color (BIPOC), through our coaching model
This work will be achieved through our collective efforts and I have no doubt that staff, parents/caregivers and students will come together to accomplish this work and more! Cheers to our work ahead!
As always, we appreciate hearing from you and maintaining open lines of communication, so please feel free to reach anytime.
In community,
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