June 24, 2023 (Spotlight on Success)
Emailed to all OSD employees, families and Friends of the OSD
Hello Olympia School District Families,
This time of year is always full of celebratory events as you will see in the many articles, photos and videos featured in this issue of Spotlight on Success. As you enjoy the sunshine and longer days of summer, I encourage you to take some time to open the links to videos or photo albums featuring graduation ceremonies, end-of-year school celebrations, award presentations, science fairs, artwork displays and reading nights, to name a few. I also want to extend a personal congratulations to the Class of 2023 and wish them the best as they begin the next phase of their lives. Your accomplishments during your time in OSD were extraordinary and we can’t wait to follow your achievements in the future.
As we bid farewell to our graduating seniors, our hard-working staff are busy preparing for the start of the 2023-24 school year. One of the initiatives already set in motion, which I have mentioned in previous communications, is a School Efficiency Review. The district has hired consultants to lead and facilitate this review process, as well as develop a comprehensive analysis of enrollment trends and a long-term enrollment forecast. You can read more about this initiative in an article in this newsletter, including plans to convene a committee this fall made up of representatives from throughout the school district to study school efficiency. Stay tuned for more information about the committee and other opportunities to provide input in this important review process.
One of the most exciting things about the arrival of summer break is knowing in a few short months we will welcome our incoming kindergartners, the Class of 2036! Whether you are a family of an incoming kindergartner, or a student new to our district in other grades, be sure to visit our Back to School resource page for all the necessary information, including school hours, supply lists, bus routes and more. For now, however, take time to relax and enjoy family and friends.
In closing, I want to say a special thank you to the staff, families and community members who helped support our students this year. To those of you who are returning to our schools this fall, we’ll see you in a few months. I wish you all a safe, restful, enjoyable summer break.
Sincerely,
Patrick Murphy
April 28, 2023 (Spotlight on Success)
Emailed to all OSD employees, families and Friends of the OSD
Hello Olympia School District Families,
One of my favorite things to do, and has been ever since I can remember as a child, is to go walk outside on especially stormy, windy, rainy days. I find it even more invigorating when near the ocean. For me, the immense power of nature makes me feel more humble and less self-important. The experience is often amplified by taking a similar walk the next morning once the storm has passed. Sometimes, there are downed trees and debris and the landscape has shifted. It’s almost as if a natural cleansing has taken place and peacefulness has been restored. Samuel Rutherford, a famous Scottish leader put it this way, “After every storm, there comes clear open skies.”
Like many school districts across our state right now, we in Olympia are going through our own fiscal “storm”. I’ve shared in previous messages some of the origins that have contributed to our present predicament which we are trying to steadfastly navigate our way through. Much like the weather, this experience has been humbling and provided much perspective. It is during times of challenge and difficulty that we learn much about ourselves, what we prioritize, and what we care most deeply about. What has been abundantly clear throughout this budgetary season is that our greater community of students, staff, and families highly value our schools and the people within them. Voices have been powerful and passionate discussing staff and programs that have been so beneficial to students and families. As one of our school board members said, when you are trying to decide on which fiscal reductions to make and the choices are between good and good, the solution will inevitably be perceived as bad. This is one of the greatest challenges of organizational leadership.
For those of you who have not yet heard, as we woke up the morning after the most recent legislative storm, there was some good news. We adopted a reduction plan based on a median estimate of how much funding our district would eventually receive from the state. The actual amount ended up on the high side of our projections. Subsequently, we have taken that increased funding and immediately deployed larger teacher staffing allocations to schools for next year, particularly at the secondary level so that our projected class size increase of 5% will now be less than 1%. We are making similar adjustments at the elementary level and across our district to restore not only certificated staff but also paraeducators and other classified staff who were part of our initial reduced education plan. We expect this infusion of new dollars to significantly reduce the number of non-renewal notices for staff. If we end up seeing our normal number of resignations or retirements, our hope is we can eliminate them altogether.
There does seem to be a missing addendum to Rutherford’s quote. If there was another line, it might say something like, “And rest assured, another storm will come.” People know this, so they learn from the storm and prepare for the next one. People might add storm windows, cities could strengthen their levees and dams, and families may update their emergency preparedness plans.
Here in Olympia we’ve learned from our fiscal storms of the last few years, and we have to be better prepared for the next one. There are certain things about our current structure that don’t serve us well when the inevitable budgetary winds pick up; specifically having a large number of smaller schools. At a recent meeting, I was informed that the North Thurston Public School District has 23 schools for over 15,000 students. In Olympia we have 19 schools for around 9,600. They average 652 kids pers school and we average 505. If we ran schools at a similar ratio, we would have a total of 15 school buildings in our district.That makes a difference every budgetary season. We are consistently looking for ways to get all the essential staff and programs in each of our schools when many of them do not generate the enrollment to fiscally justify that staff. This reality has been exacerbated by our declining enrollment since 2019-20.
At the direction of the school board, we have used resources from our Capital Budget (building, facilitates, planning, etc) to bring in outside experts to complete a new long-term enrollment forecast this spring. This will be broken out by regions and neighborhoods in our district, along with building capacities, bus routes, programs, etc. This information will be essential to inform a district wide committee that will convene next fall to look for the most efficient ways to run our schools so that they are fully resourced with the staff and programs our students need and deserve. We will be sharing more information about how to participate in that process in the weeks and months ahead, so please stay tuned.
Almost assuredly, this will be another “stormy” exercise. It will, and already has, brought out both passion and concerns. This confirms what we already knew, that our communities greatly value their schools, and that is a darn good thing. This necessary work will buffer us better from the fiscal winds of the future and allow us to weather the storms of tomorrow.
Sincerely,
Patrick Murphy
March 31, 2023 (Spotlight on Success)
Emailed to all OSD employees, families and Friends of the OSD
Hello Olympia School District Families,
As we prepare to head into Spring Break, I want to take a moment and acknowledge the distressing impact of this year’s budget challenges on our community. While our deficit projection has improved as we’ve refined our calculations and updated our data and enrollment forecasts, it is still apparent that we will have to make some significant reductions to our system. For a more detailed description of what is driving our deficit, please see last month's Spotlight on Success article.
Years ago, I remember working in another district through its own fiscal challenges and someone said we should “run the school district more like a business.” That sentiment has always left me torn.
On the one hand, like any business, we have a fiduciary responsibility to our customers (taxpayers, families, community) to be good stewards with the resources entrusted to us. We cannot live beyond our means. Revenue has to be equal to or greater than expenditures or you can become insolvent. That is not only obvious to me, but it is critical to maintain the trust of our community. Historically, support for our schools has been forthcoming and generous in Olympia. Businesses have to monitor their flow of customers, keep tabs on their staffing levels so they are not understaffed or overstaffed, and ensure that they pay their staff competitively, lest they lose those staff members to competitors. We wrestle with these same issues annually and they are particularly challenging now.
On the other hand, schools are not a “business” in that our ultimate goal is not to turn a profit. Schools are a public good, like our parks, our roads and our emergency responders. Our ultimate purpose is to make sure every child, no matter their background or circumstances, leaves our system with the skills and confidence necessary to pursue their dreams. And every child is unique. We dedicate significant amounts of resources to children that have more profound needs than others. More and more we are asked to provide physical and mental health support in schools for children who don’t have access to those services outside of school. We invested a large portion of our federal pandemic relief dollars for these purposes, and that money is drying up.
So, like many districts across the state, we are facing some tough choices on what we can and cannot continue to do. I want to thank everyone for taking our surveys, participating at board meetings and providing feedback to the school board and district leadership on the budget. As one school board director said, “There are no good choices” on our list of reductions. I thank them, in their volunteer capacity, for taking on this difficult task.
I want to close by sharing two things. If you had not heard, given the lower but still significant deficit projection, we have removed any school closure/consolidation for the 2023-24 school year off of the proposed reduction list. Doing a deep analysis of our future enrollment projections and building capacity, and forming a districtwide committee to consider how best to fully resource schools, is still much needed. We will begin that process this spring, so stay tuned for more information.
Lastly, while we will make some tough, needed fiscal corrections that will hurt going into next year, I am confident that we will be okay. I don’t say this because of some groundless optimism, but rather because I get to see our students, families and staff in action every day. We are a talented, resilient, creative and compassionate community. We will keep fighting to get the resources in our schools that we need, and make the very best of what we have in the interim.
I hope you all have a restful and happy spring break with family and friends.
Sincerely,
Patrick Murphy
February 24, 2023 (Spotlight on Success)
Emailed to all OSD employees, families and Friends of the OSD
Hello Olympia School District Families,
We are not quite through the halfway point of this year’s legislative session, but it is a good time to give an update on the current outlook relative to our school district’s financial situation.
For some background, many of you may have been listening and watching our school board meetings the last couple of months, and so you are already aware that we are currently projecting a significant deficit for the 2023-24 school year of around $17 million. While this is our preliminary, current estimate, it could change later this spring based on new expenditure data, further updated revenue projections, and staffing retirements and resignations. The board of directors is expected to adopt a resolution for a Reduced Educational Plan in late March, and at that time we will have a more refined estimate of our deficit.
We predicted this deficit a few years ago prior to the pandemic but it was delayed by the infusion of federal pandemic relief dollars that are now drying up. And now we have some new fiscal realities that are magnifying our problem. Our deficit is driven by several factors:
- We have reduced revenue due to our enrollment decline of more than 700 students since 2019-20. Because enrollment decline has been a statewide problem since COVID, this was mitigated the last couple of years by hold-harmless legislation that allowed districts to collect state apportionment funding based on past higher enrollment, but that relief, too, is drying up.
-
The federal pandemic relief funding known as the Elementary and Secondary Schools Emergency Relief (ESSER) funds will basically expire at the end of this year. That money had allowed us to infuse approximately $5 million per year the last three years in our system to fund long needed physical, mental and social emotional support staff in our schools.
-
There continues to be a significant gap between state funding and the district’s cost of special education services. This is largely driven by an arbitrary state cap on the percentage of students it will fund, and Olympia continues to serve significantly more students above that cap. We have had to cover this cost locally at a price tag of almost $10 million this school year.
- As has been discussed for several years, the 2017 McCleary legislation to fix school district funding did us no favors in Olympia. It reduced our ability to collect locally, voter-approved, levy revenue, lowered our allocation for compensating our more experienced staff, and skipped over us when it came to increased regionalization funding. The effect of McCleary is coming home to roost. Other factors contributing to our deficit include our commitment to competitive increases to keep employee salaries on pace with inflation, which is also driving up the costs for insurance, utilities, curriculum, fuel and other expenses faster than state funding keeps up.
On our budget web page you can find key information about our legislative priorities and even information on key bills that would benefit our support for students. At this time, most of the legislation we are tracking will fall short of meeting our needs as a district, especially in the areas of special education funding which is disappointing. But there is time left in the session and hopefully that will improve.
We launched a budget survey, which is meant to give our community an opportunity to offer feedback to myself and the board on where funding should be prioritized while making reductions. I know it can be a frustrating exercise because respondents have to rank different programs in the district and people feel very passionate about them. Teaching, instructional support, classroom support staff, principals, music, custodial services, grounds maintenance, nursing and health room staff, athletics, office professionals, mental health supports, etc; these are some of the areas in which the survey is soliciting input. We already have around 1,600 responses but we want to hear from everyone. The survey closes on March 13, and we will report results to the board in late March.
Budget conversations, whether during times of reductions or enhancements, is always an opportunity to calibrate our priorities as a community. It is a time to commit to leading with an equity lens and ensure that those who have historically been underserved or unheard have their voices magnified. That belief is embedded in the board’s commitment to co-creating an equity policy that will help us make decisions now and in the future that better serve ALL students. One way to be a part of that is to take part in an equity policy focus group. Anyone can participate and signups are available here. Another way to participate is to be sure to take the student-generated equity policy input surveys, which are linked from an article further down in this newsletter.
Thank you as always for your commitment and support of the Olympia School District. We have some difficult challenges facing us but we also have an opportunity to come out of these challenges more clearly committed to building and creating a school system that is welcoming to all and prepares our students to succeed in the future.
Sincerely,
Patrick Murphy
January 29, 2023 (Spotlight on Success)
Emailed to all OSD employees, families and Friends of the OSD
Hello Olympia School District Families,
January and February are not only the months that mark the middle of the school year. They also mark the time on our calendar when we honor the life of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., once again proclaim Black Lives Matter at School Week, and celebrate Black History Month. These seasonal, official recognitions are relatively new in our community and nation when compared to the full history of this land. It is in that context that I found myself reflecting on a book that I had read recently that is on former President Obama’s list of best reads of 2022. The author is Pulitzer Prize winner Stacy Schiff and the title is The Revolutionary.
It is an account of the lead-up to the War for American Independence and focuses on Samuel Adams of Boston. It documents a series of events and actions over several years that eventually led to the Declaration of Independence. A theme throughout that build up of tension was a growing sense by the colonists that they were not being heard or respected. Another way that they put it was, “Taxation without representation is tyranny.”
Perhaps a more modern vernacular of the same sentiment might be, “Nothing about us without us.” One of the more effective uses of this slogan in modern times was by disability activist Tshililo Michael Masutha of South Africa. Born with a visual disability, he later became Deputy Minister of Science and Technology and eventually the Minister of Justice where he served for five years ending in 2019.
In the 19th century, the legendary leader Frederick Douglass consistently pointed out the hypocrisy of those espousing ideals and rights that did not apply to people of African descent. Douglass gave one of the most important speeches in our nation's history in Rochester, New York in 1852.
The event was commemorating the 76th anniversary of America’s independence. His What, to the Slave, is the Fourth of July speech is among the most powerful testimonials about the indignities of having policies imposed on a people without the full and direct participation of those affected. In his words that day, Douglass started by singing the praises of the founding fathers, applauding their accomplishments, which in his eyes were rightly being celebrated. But he could not in good conscience participate in that celebration because their achievements did not benefit him or his people. They did not represent him, or his lived history. He told his predominantly white American listeners, “The sunlight that brought light and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me….This Fourth of July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn.” He did not mince words, “The feeling of the nation must be quickened; the conscience of the nation must be roused; the propriety of the nation must be startled; the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed, and its crimes against God and man must be proclaimed and denounced.”
Over a century later, Dr. King, at our nation’s capital in our nation’s most famous speech, shared his dream; telling us how far we have to go, demanding that we keep going.
Imagine if we took the Revolutionary War rallying cry above and changed the word from “Taxation” to “Education.” What if it was your education and you did not see yourself or your family’s lived experiences or history represented in it? What if decisions were being made that directly impacted you, by those who don’t really know you, and frankly have never really, truly tried to? Maybe you feel that way. Students and families in Olympia have told me as much.
With each generation there is a renewed call for us to finally and fully live up to the ideals in our nation’s founding. I ask you to join us again this year in the Olympia School District as we renew and more loudly proclaim our belief that Black Lives Matter, as we more deeply immerse ourselves in the rich and proud history of Black Americans; a history that is so much more than enslavement, and as we recommit to the ongoing effort to achieve Dr. King’s dream.
Sincerely,
Patrick Murphy
December 16, 2022 (Spotlight on Success)
Emailed to all OSD employees, families and Friends of the OSD
Hello Olympia School District Families,
Winter Break and the holiday season have arrived. As some of you may recall in previous messages I have sent this time of year, I’ve shared that we celebrate Christmas in my family. This time of year conjures up many memories from my childhood and when my own children were little. One tradition that was always a big deal was annually going out and cutting down a Christmas tree. Every year, there was quite a bit of debate, bargaining and compromise among siblings and family members as we would mark different trees and eventually pick the winner. We’d tie it to the car, bring it home and decorate.
Well this year, we’ve done something that I might have thought unthinkable not too many years ago: we are going with an artificial tree. If you’ve ever seen the Charlie Brown Christmas special, you know that a fake tree was considered an abomination. But truth be told, I like our new tree. It looks remarkably real, doesn’t shed needles (or cause one of our kids to sneeze who has been allergic to past trees), can be reused each year saving us from having to buy a new one annually, and doesn’t require putting water in the basin.
My guess is that those who celebrate Christmas and have had similar past traditions might have some strong opinions about this story. And for those that don’t celebrate Christmas, it may just be a funny little anecdote.
The fact is, at the end of the day, whether our tree is cut in the forest, picked from a lot, or pulled out of storage, it does not change the meaningfulness of the holiday to our family and the importance of it in our lives. It is the excitement with children, time with family, and celebrating our faith; those things are timeless and lasting. While the technical parts of our traditions may change causing a temporary sense of sorrow and loss, the core principles behind those joyful experiences endure.
They say the only constant in life is change. Change is necessary for progress and growth. Throughout history, it has allowed us to avoid and even eradicate many of the afflictions our ancestors experienced. There is a lot of rapid change happening in the world right now, and that can be hard to process, but it is the ultimate way we get to a better future for our children.
Whatever your traditions, whatever changes you are going through, I wish you all a restful winter break and the Happiest of New Years.
Sincerely,
Patrick Murphy
November 22, 2022 (Spotlight on Success)
Emailed to all OSD employees, families and Friends of the OSD
Hello Olympia School District Families,
As Thanksgiving approaches, it is always a good time to take stock of those things for which we are grateful. The 19th century English author Charles Dickens encouraged us to, “Reflect upon your present blessings, of which every man has plenty; not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some.”
We have much to be grateful for today in the Olympia School District. Our recent graduating Class of 2022 had a four-year on-time graduation rate of 91.3%, which is among the highest in the state. At the same time, it is important to note that finishing in four years might not be reasonable or even advisable for some. For a multilingual learner who arrives in our country during their high school years, graduating in five years may be much more appropriate. Health or family circumstances may be good reasons to extend time in high school for some students. Students receiving special services sometimes have plans of service through the age of 21. That is why we often look at our extended or 5-year graduation rate as another important measure. This year Avanti High School’s 5-year grad rate was 100%, a remarkable achievement that cannot be claimed by many.
We have enjoyed incredible music and drama performances and wonderful athletic achievements in our gyms, on our fields and in our swimming pools where Olympia HS sophomore Aoi Kondo won the 4A Girls State Diving Championship. As we continue our recovery from the last few years, slowly but surely our volunteers are coming back to our schools in larger numbers which has always been a critical piece of our school district’s success.
Yes, there continue to be challenges, like there always were and always will be. While our COVID numbers are at the lowest levels we’ve seen in a long, long time, other respiratory illnesses like flu and RSV (Respiratory Syncytial Virus) are causing their own challenges. As a reminder, many of the same measures that we implemented for mitigating COVID-19 spread (e.g., hand washing, not sharing utensils and cups, cleaning frequently used surfaces, and covering coughs/sneezes) have similar effectiveness for RSV and cold/flu according to the CDC. And flu shots are always a step we can take to better ensure we stay healthy. Our Thurston County partners offer many places to get that done.
It has been said many times in different ways, it’s not as important what happens to us, but rather how we respond to what happens. I know for me, it is too easy to get bogged down in worry and regrets. Focusing on the good and being thankful will pay dividends. Country singer Willie Nelson said, “When I started counting my blessings, my whole life turned around.”
My life and my family’s took a wonderful turn when we arrived in Olympia nearly 6 years ago. I am grateful to serve all of you and wish you and your family a Happy Thanksgiving and joyous Holiday Season.
Sincerely,
Patrick Murphy
October 28, 2022 (Spotlight on Success)
Emailed to all OSD employees, families and Friends of the OSD
Hello Olympia School District Families,
Author Stanley Horowitz said, “Winter is an etching, spring a watercolor, summer an oil painting and autumn a mosaic of them all.” After having a beautiful summer that seemed to last much longer than usual, the brilliant, flaming colors of our foliage and the brisk fall breezes are even more welcome and appreciated. This is also the time of year when our students, families and staff begin to find their groove and get more comfortable with the routine of school. I hope that is the case for all of you.
I wanted to take this moment to update you on some current initiatives in the district as well as inform you of some inevitable challenges on the fiscal front:
Balanced Calendar
As most of you are aware by now, our district, along with others around the state have been exploring the idea of a balanced calendar. Balanced calendars are the same number of school days in a school year, but breaks are altered to shorten the length of summer break while adding breaks from school during other months inside the traditional school year. There is some research that suggests such a calendar could help address summer learning loss and lessen stress for students and staff. You may have participated in one of our surveys related to this or might be following the work of our exploratory committee on our website. The committee is looking to finish its work next month and make a recommendation to the board. A key parameter for this work is that it should be a regional decision and that no change should be made unilaterally by our district given our deep connections with our surrounding districts like Griffin, Tumwater and North Thurston.
Our exploratory committee is grappling with the same challenges and issues that previous committees and other districts have tried to tackle when considering this. Issues like lack of air conditioning, impacts on summer employment, aligning with higher education institutions, child care challenges, etc. All of these topics and more make it very hard to substantially change the school year calendar. Stay tuned for more information in the weeks ahead.
Equity Policy Development
Creating and implementing an Equity Policy to link with and augment our district strategic plan has been a goal for the school board and district leadership. A policy will codify a systematic review of our systems and procedures to ensure that all students, families and staff get what they need to be successful. For decades, our data has shown disproportionately negative outcomes for various groups of students in our system. Students of color, those impacted by poverty, lacking housing, multilingual, or receiving special education services; all have historically had gaps in opportunities and achievement. The work of our Equity Policy Steering Committee can be found on our website. We have reached an important stage in this work as we launch our focus group outreach next month beginning with students. The committee is not only prepared to facilitate focus groups but has also created a toolkit for any group in our community to conduct its own discussions and provide feedback to inform and co-create the eventual policy. As they’ve said in their shared purpose statement, we must “celebrat(e) the strengths and diversity of our district (while) identifying and dismantling barriers that are preventing us from fostering a sense of belonging and fully honoring and serving all.” Stay tuned for more information and please consider participating in a focus group.
Budget/Upcoming Legislative Session
The last few years have been acutely challenging due to the pandemic. As we grappled with the myriad of challenges, one thing that was not pressing was any need to simultaneously manage a budget crisis. Thanks to past, prudent fiscal management coupled with the influx of one-time federal relief dollars, we were able to not only manage enrollment declines and fluctuations, but also add much-needed staffing support in the form of health room staff, social workers, family liaisons and additional teachers. Much of that staffing was being asked for prior to the pandemic as mental health support had been a clarion call by school leaders for decades. With the dropping off of the federal relief dollars and our need to respond to things like higher inflation, we once again find ourselves in a place, going into this Legislative Session, to ask for a more equitable and sustainable funding formula from the state.
Not surprisingly, given the precedence of the pandemic, we may have forgotten that back in 2019-20 we were asking the state to reconsider some of its education funding fixes. You might recall that we did not get “regionalization,” which is a significant increase in revenue for some districts due to costs of living. Olympia did not get regionalization while our neighbors did, and we compete with them to attract and hire staff. You may have understandably failed to recall that the state moved to an average teacher salary allocation for all districts regardless of teacher experience. That is especially harmful to places like Olympia that have more senior teaching staff. And, the state continues to underfund special education. The bottom line is we will once again need to make a strong case to our state leaders to do all they can to keep our much needed support of the last couple of years in place. Without some changes, there will be some difficult budgetary decisions to be made next spring. The impacts of the pandemic will not be gone next year. We will feel the reverberations for many years to come.
We will continue to provide updates about the budget and Legislative Session, as well as district initiatives, in the coming months. Please remember to visit our district website and OSD social media platforms.
Sincerely,
Patrick Murphy
August 25, 2022 (Spotlight on Success)
Emailed to all OSD employees, families and Friends of the OSD
Hello Olympia School District Families,
I can’t remember a summer with such wonderful and consistent weather. Hopefully you have all had an opportunity to be outside and enjoy it. Now, the “Back to School” advertisements are filling the airwaves, and that can only mean one thing. The 2022-23 school year is right around the corner.
This school year promises to be another important step in our recovery from the events of the past few years. And, as we have said time and again, our goal is not to “get back to normal” but rather to come out better, stronger and more responsive to the needs of all students and families. As we continue our transformational work in the Olympia School District, there are some important items to note:
-
This morning, August 25, 2022, Thurston County Public Health and Social Services released its latest flowchart for symptomatic students and staff. Please note the updates highlighted in red on the flowchart. The Washington State Department of Health has also issued new guidance this month on COVID mitigation. Many of the measures in place at the end of last school year will remain in effect this fall.
-
The district is continuing two key initiatives: the exploration of a balanced calendar, and the creation and adoption of an equity policy. If you are interested in serving on a Balanced Calendar Exploratory Committee, please let your school principal know and stay tuned for more information in September on upcoming community engagement opportunities related to the equity policy.
-
While we are making inroads, we still, like most school districts, are grappling with bus driver shortages. If you are interested in serving in this critically important role, you can find more information here.
-
Mark your calendars for the annual Olympia School District Education Foundation’s “Education Foundation Breakfast” on the morning of October 7 (a non-student day) in the beautiful, new, voter-supported Capital High School Performing Arts Center. Information about the breakfast, which supports our Principal's Emergency Fund, and all the other wonderful work of the Foundation, can be found on its website.
I hope you get an opportunity to savor the waning days of summer with family and friends before school starts. On September 7, we will welcome students in grades one through 12 into our schools, followed on September 12 by preschoolers and kindergartners – the graduating Class of 2035! I look forward to seeing all of you at open houses and other back-to-school events, as well as continuing to partner with you in the coming year. See you at school!
Sincerely,
Patrick Murphy