Sept. 6, 2018

 

Dear Hance Elementary Families,

 

Over the past three days, I have encouraged the Hance staff to close their eyes, click their heels together, and chant together “There’s no place like Hance,” just like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz.  When we finally got the good news that we are able to return “home” to Hance and begin class on Friday, September 7, we were excited to engage our students in the process and continue in our year-long journey together.  I am happy to tell you that the students have been positive, respectful, and engaged in building relationships with their peers and teachers. The students have been extremely resilient and worked hard to adapt to their new surroundings very quickly.

 

As an update, last week teacher’s engaged their students in an activity and had students state something they wish their teacher knew.  A few teachers placed student responses in my mailbox, and we were amazed at some of the responses. The depth of some of the responses was remarkable and really made us all take a step back to reflect on the importance of our students' needs and what weighs on their minds on a daily basis.  As we embark on our journey back to Hance Elementary, I have full confidence that the transition will be smooth and the relationships already established will help us forge full speed ahead and continue to focus on learning for every student every day!

 

Hance Elementary students have a unique opportunity.  Our students and staff get a chance to experience a “second first day.”  Our goal is to make this as engaging as possible for students enhanced by a yellow brick road, balloons, and our welcome signs to greet students to go along with our building theme this year, “There’s no place like Hance.”  Many parents often take first day of school photos and last day of school photos to help capture and document the physical growth of their child over the course of a school year. This year though, your child could potentially have “two first day” photos along with their final day of school picture.  Although the “two first day” photos may look nearly identical physically since they are only a few days apart, we know that the students have grown exponentially in building resiliency, approaching challenges they may encounter with a positive attitude, and learning a lifelong lesson about the importance of building appropriate, trusting relationships.

 

In order to celebrate and capture this diverse opportunity, please follow me on twitter @Hanceprincipal and share your #secondfirstdaytheresnoplacelikehance photographs!  If you aren’t on social media, feel free to email them to me at gkuzilla@pinerichland.org.  We will collect these photos and create a collage to display them.  Thank you for your continued support over the past few weeks. We will continue to work through this together and ensure the best experience possible for our students!

 

Best regards,

Greta Kuzilla

Hance Elementary Principal