Inside the Trenches of the Principal: Week 6
Things got real this week! For the past five weeks, things were being put into place for students to come back to school. On Thursday, we welcomed our 600 Moore Magnet families back to school for Open House in style!
When I presented at my friend Hope King’s Get Your Teach On Conference this summer, she created giant 6 foot letters spelling out GYTO. I immediately decided in my brain that I “had” to have these at my new school, since I found out about the job while I was in Texas at this conference. Long story short, I asked everyone in my local network who had carpentry skills to build them. Luckily, my talented friend Will volunteered to make these and donate them to my school. The magic came from many places, however, as a handful of my teachers also had an important hand in creating the stencils for the letters and painting them.
You can see it on my Instagram account @adamdovico.
To add to the “Hollywood” feel these letters produced, for Open House we also rolled out a red carpet and got several gold balloons to make it feel like a premiere event. Families took full advantage of the setup and took hundreds of pictures in front of the letters. Music was blasting and people were joyous, which was exactly what I had hoped for!
This week proved that the small things can make the biggest differences. Whether it was getting giant letters constructed, pushing my teachers’ PDP submissions until Monday, or having Ron Clark give our school a shout out during his convocation speech, it’s attention to detail and making the pieces come together that builds culture.
There is no rest, though, because the rubber hits the road on Monday, as 600 scholars enter Moore Magnet! What they do not know is that the surprises have just begun!
