"Mr. Albright earns his new Dragon Wings at Back to School Night"

DRAGON NEWS

Mid-Buchanan News You Can Use

July 2019

Hello Dragon Fans,

It is with great excitement that I am writing this first newsletter to you all.  I am honored to have the privilege to serve the Mid-Buchanan students, staff, and community as superintendent of schools.  Over the past several months, I have had the opportunity to meet and visit with lots of great people, and I am so thankful for everyone being open and welcoming as I make this transition.  With great students, great staff, a great school board, and a great community there is nothing we can’t accomplish to make this the greatest school in the area…the state…the country…the world…the UNIVERSE!!!

In this first newsletter for the 2019-2020 school year, I would like to start by sharing a little about myself, my family, and my goals/vision for the school district.  

• I am Jay Albright and recently finished my 22nd year in education.  I was blessed to start my education career in Cameron, MO as a band director for grades 5-12.  I remained in the band director position for 10 years. I then transitioned to assistant middle school principal at Cameron Middle School for two years before taking over as building principal for 6 years.  I then had the honor to serve the Stewartsville community as superintendent over the past 4 years. My 22 years in education have allowed me to develop a vast array of relationships that I will cherish for the remainder of my life.  It is exciting to me that I will now have the opportunity to build lasting relationships with the students, staff, parents, and community members of the Mid-Buchanan School District.

• I have the honor of saying that I am the husband to my beautiful wife, Hope, and the proud father of our 23-year-old son, Nikolas.  Our son recently graduated from Missouri Western State University with a degree in Business Administration – Finance and at the end of June landed his first real world job (whew…finally!!!!).

• My truest focus as a district educational leader is to ensure that purposeful learning is always happening.  When I talk about learning I am talking about learning for everyone in the district including myself. I love to learn new things and recognize that as the adults in the district build their capacity for learning that our students will benefit from our growth.  If the only people learning in our school are ages 4 through 18 then we’re doing it wrong.  This should be an educational community involving learning for students, staff, and community.

As I was researching the Mid-Buchanan School District prior to interviewing for this position, I became aware of an amazing strategic plan that the district had recently put in place to provide direction for the district.  I would like to say, “Kudos” to the hard work and effort that made this plan possible. As I have wrapped my mind around the awesome features of the strategic plan; I have developed a vision of how to encapsulate the strategic plan into a P.A.C.C.T. that I will make with all stakeholders of the district.

*My P.A.C.C.T. to you (oh no…another acronym)

• P – programs that others want to emulate

  • It is my goal to support and encourage growth in our current programs and move forward with developing new programs for our students that other schools will want to emulate.  Examples would be continued support of strong counseling programs that encourage the emotional, social, and academic well-being of all students; continued support of reading programs to ensure all students are reading at or above grade level; continued support in the success of co-curricular and extra-curricular programs like AG, Band, Shop (I love that Mid-Buch still has this program), Family and Consumer Sciences, Athletics, etc.  I am hopeful that in the near future we can kick off some new programs to encourage new learning for our students like robotics clubs and computer coding opportunities. These are just a few ideas as we move forward.

• A – academic leader in the area and the state

  • If we all commit to the purest meaning of why this school exists…LEARNING, then the sky is the limit with what we can offer our students.  Instructional leadership is a passion for me, and I am hopeful to continue building the capacity of our teachers, support staff, and administrators to ensure when people think of the Mid-Buchanan School District that they instantly think of a high performing academic school.

  • I have placed facility improvements within this section of the P.A.C.C.T.  It is crucial that we are providing the safest, cleanest, and most inviting environment possible for our students and staff to learn in.  There are multiple facility improvement goals already in motion and many to attend to in the near future. I will keep you informed of facility improvement goals as we move forward.

  • Our mission statement articulates that the reason we exist is, ‘To prepare all students to become successful, productive citizens through learning each day’.  

    • Several key words to note in our mission statement –

      • Prepare – preparation takes time and consistency with meaningful instructional strategies.  The purpose behind every lesson must be intentional. This equates to having a quality curriculum that is vertically aligned which is accomplished through careful and strategic staff collaboration.  This process is already in motion.

      • All Students – exactly what it says…All Means All.  We will focus on supporting every single student.  I cannot accept any student “falling through the cracks”.

      • Successful, Productive – being purposeful and meaningful with planning lessons that support the growth and capacity of our students to ensure we have given them a platform to build upon for their future in order to be successful and productive in the environment which they live within.

      • Each Day – this is the key.  We only have around 175 days of school each year.  This truly is never enough time to get done everything we need to get done, so student attendance is the largest factor here.  I ask that you do everything in your power to ensure your child is in on time and in attendance every single day. I thank you in advance for making this your priority.

• C – career and technical education leader (CTE)

  • It is my sincerest hope to provide as many opportunities as possible for our students to be exposed to career and college options while they attend Mid-Buchanan.  The more we can wet the palette of our students’ career interests, the better informed they will be to make meaningful decisions. It is important that all students know that they have a plethora of options to consider when making decisions about the direction of their life.

• C – celebration (I’m singing Celebration by Kool and the Gang while I type this)

  • One thing that great schools do is celebrate the students, staff, and community on a consistent basis.  There are so many incredible things that happen on a daily basis. My goal is to be sure and celebrate the great things happening within all facets of the school community.  Please join us in celebrating the fact that this is a great place to be.

• T – technology leader in our area

  • The district is already on an amazing path to implement some major upgrades in the technology opportunities for students.  It is my goal to support and encourage the continued growth of meaningful technology opportunities that will equate to powerful learning for the students.  I would love to see Mid-Buchanan recognized as a technology leader in our area.  

This is my P.A.C.C.T. to you as I assume the responsibility, and honor, of serving as your superintendent.  All of the items within the strategic plan and this P.A.C.C.T. will take time, but I am committed to making this the reality that our students live within when they attend the Mid-Buchanan School District.  It truly does take a village to raise a child, so I am hopeful that each of you will join in this journey of making Mid-Buchanan the greatest school district in the UNIVERSE!!!

Okay…I know I’ve already been a bit long winded (I’m kind of bad about that).  Below are just a few more items for your perusal.

1. This newsletter will be coming out monthly following each month’s Board of Education meeting so that I can keep you up to speed on the action items and goals of the school board.

2. Included with this newsletter is a list of school supplies needed for the upcoming year.  It is already July so I’m guessing you may already have school shopping on your mind.                                                                                          

3. Don’t forget to follow us on Facebook and Twitter.  However, I recognize that not all community members utilize these social media platforms, so I am hopeful this newsletter will help to ensure all stakeholders have the opportunity to know what is happening at school.  

4. It is important to me that I let you know that my door is always open.  However, please know that I believe strongly in asking patrons to follow the chain of command when dealing with possible adverse situations.  Please always seek resolution by going to the closest person to the situation (i.e. teacher, coach, sponsor, transportation director, food service director, etc.).  If resolution is not achieved through this channel, please make contact with the building level administrator or athletic/activities director (for athletic/activity concerns) next.  If a situation does not come to resolution once these communication channels have been utilized, then please make contact with me to see if I can be of assistance. The district is governed by a vast array of policies and procedures and it is my job, and intent, to follow the policies and procedures to the best of my ability.    I greatly appreciate your understanding and support with this even when policy and/or procedure may cause frustration. I truly want the school and community to be a team. As long as we stick together then the kids that walk through the doors of the school will be the ultimate winners every single day.

Thank you so much for taking the time to read through this first newsletter.  Again, I am excited to serve in this role and look forward to kicking off an amazing school year this fall.

Sincerely,

Jay Albright, superintendent

816-238-1646

[email protected]