Good is the enemy of great

The third shared value and belief of our district is Continuous Improvement. Good is always the enemy of great. We can never be content to be just good enough; we must always strive to be our best. As educators we must encourage our students and ourselves to continuously improve everything we do, we must aim higher, dream bigger and shoot for the stars.

We cannot look at our school improvement process as a plan to jump over a bar set at a specific height, because the bar keeps rising. We must set both short and long term goals for improvement and put systems in place that provide for constant upward movement.

The current goal of the New York State Department of Education is 100% proficiency of all of our students on all state assessments by 2012. This is an ambitious goal that the Watervliet City School District fully supports and intends to meet. In order to do this we must push to improve every day.

Even when we meet this goal, there will still be a need for continuous improvement. There will always be areas in which we can improve. Aside from 100% proficiency, we are working to see more students graduating on time, more students attending four year colleges and universities, more students making greater contributions to our community and country just to name a few.

As I said before, good is the enemy of great. It’s a little-known fact that a great white shark must always be moving forward or it will die because it is not getting oxygen from water flowing through its gills. I want all of our faculty members and students to “be the shark” and keep their forward momentum going throughout their lives.

Continuing our discussion on the shared values and beliefs of our school district, I’d like to address the second value:

High Expectations

Expectations for students, parents and staff are clearly defined, understood and communicated. Students, parents and staff are empowered, supported and trained to meet high expectations.

Our expectation is that “every student” will find success here in the Watervliet City School District. We expect that all students will reach a high level of academic achievement and develop into socially well rounded individuals. We also expect that every adult; teachers, staff, parents and community partners understand the expectations that we have of ourselves in accepting the responsibility to provide a high level of support.

While we expect a great deal of our students, we must expect a great deal of ourselves. High expectations must be held and maintained for all. However in order to make this a reality we must also realize that as educators our job is to provide the high level of support that our students need to meet these expectations. A “high expectations” / “high support” learning community gets things done, grows and finds a great deal of success.

A nice example of how Watervliet CSD has a history of rising to meet the challenge of high expectations was the recent induction of over 20 members into the New Watervliet Athletic Hall of Fall. All of the inductees, whether coaches, supporters or athletes, met and exceeded high expectations during their athletic careers and their lives beyond WCSD. And we have had many students throughout the years who have done the same in the classroom.

Expectations alone will not get the job done. Support, understanding, patience and hard work are needed to help us as we rise to meet these high expectations. As our mission statement says we must be ready to do so, “Every day”. High expectations should never take a day off or go on vacation. We expect every member of our school community to “bring their A game” in everything they do.