Hello good people and congrats on making it through the first month of the school year! Time has really flown by and I hope you all are well.

I am super excited to see all of the great things that have been emerging already just in these past few weeks.

On Monday, Sept. 11, I attended the first Board of Education meeting since the beginning of the school year. Most of the conversation was dedicated to the school’s goals for the school year:

Goal 1: Equitable and Excellent Education: structural racism is the most devastating factor impeding the achievement of students, ETHS will eliminate the predictability of academic outcomes based upon race, and its intersection with gender, income, LGBTQIA+, disabilities, and emergent multilingual status.

Goal 2: Student Wellbeing- environment based on students’ well-being

Goal 3: Fiscal Accountability- value based budgeting

Goal 4: Community Engagement and Partnerships- Strengthening relationships through communication and engagement

The board meeting was also mostly about a sense of belonging at ETHS and what teachers and admin should do to re-engage students and connect with their families.   Administrators are planning on achieving this goal through more transparent communication and possibly some sort of data dashboard for students, the primary focus being data transparency.

The Student Union has had 3 meetings so far and we are getting started on planning the Student Voice Forum, previously known as the Witherbell Forum. As a reminder, our Student Union is our ALL- VOLUNTEER student government, meaning that all of the students who show up to our meetings CHOOSE to be there and are passionate changemakers! This model of student government isn’t common and we pride ourselves on representing the greater student body.

The Student Voice Forum is a day dedicated towards student voice where almost 1,000 students come through the Hub (W220) during the day, and share suggestions they have for the school, conflicts they have faced, and notable personal experiences. During the course of the day, administration comes in and out of the space, making the Forum’s individual conversations personal and significant. With the data from the Forum, the Student Union collects and organizes the information, creating a presentation for the Leadership Team of administration in the building.

Thank you all for being the change you want to see, and as we continue to push through the school year and uplifting each other’s voices, I am excited for what the school year will bring.