Dear Students and Parents:

Paul “Bear” Bryant states, “Show class, have pride, and display character. If you do, winning takes care of itself.” As we move into the 2017-2018 school year our focus is on ensuring that students are equipped to “Win the day”! Each student will experience what it means to win socially, emotionally and academically this year. These wins will result in achieving our overall mission: To close the achievement gap by providing every student a comprehensive education that prepares them for future learning and success in a global society. As the coaches and support personnel for your students, we will support them in creating a culture of kindness, a culture of academic rigor as well as ensuring that we always work on continuous improvement.

Mark Twain wrote, “Kindness is the language that the deaf can hear and the blind can see.” The middle school years can be challenging for students as they grow socially and emotionally. We will strive to build and sustain a culture of kindness by explicitly teaching positive behavior expectations and rewarding students that demonstrate positive behavior. One of the most glaring character traits missing in today’s world is the ability to communicate clearly, calmly and with empathy and compassion. These skills will be taught and reinforced daily to prepare our students so that as they move on to career and college in the near future they will have the skills to work collaboratively with peers and colleagues.

With college and career readiness as the end goal, we must ensure that a culture of academic rigor is evidenced and practiced routinely. As an AVID National Demonstration School, we embody the essential idea that rigorous learning should happen for ALL students. We will work to support students at each instructional level with strategies that challenge each learner to improve academically. The content in middle school is difficult, so expect students to be fatigued and frustrated at times. Much like an athlete that works hard at strength and conditioning to ensure victory, our students will train daily in order to develop stronger academic skills like; critical thinking, meta-cognitive focus and critical reading. These consistent, high yielding instructional practices will ensure that students have the chance to “WIN THE DAY”!

Benjamin Franklin states, “Without continual growth and progress, such words as improvement, achievement, and success have no meaning.” Continuous improvement happens in all areas of a student’s life. We encourage students to continue to improve academically on local and state level assessments, as well as daily practice and effort in the classroom. Students will also grow socially as they become a part of the Maverick family and learn to interact with and support their peers from all walks of life. The staff at RVMS will monitor the continuous improvement cycle with weekly collaboration around student needs and academic performance. This improvement will focus on equity for all members of the Maverick community socially, emotionally and academically.

Robert Collier once said, “Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out.” Each day students and parents will have the chance to “WIN THE DAY!” by doing the little things well. Appropriate and active participation by parents and the community is vital to students’ success. Students that complete the daily tasks of being prepared, showing up on time and giving their best will likely have many small victories that lead to great success. We look forward to supporting your students on the long journey toward college and career readiness. Together, we rise. Divided, we fall. In unity, on behalf of our students, let’s “WIN THE DAY!”