Happy Friday IA Families,
Today was our first Flex Friday, and it was great to see our IT students working on networking infrastructure, database design and implementation, and many other topics. These days give our students a great opportunity to leverage their passions and explore their pathway more deeply.
I can’t wait to see what we do on our other Flex Fridays.
To our 9th grade parents, I encourage you to work with your students to have an open mind for all the pathways as they attend these Flex Fridays. While they might not think they are interested, if they approach the day with curiosity, it’s likely they will have a great time. We’ve had many students switch pathways because of these sessions. It’s important to remember that Flex Fridays are Flexible Learning Days and not Flexible Attendance Days. Students should follow the schedule shared with them for which days they are to attend. We are unique in that your students have two Fridays a month where they will be doing school work remotely, so please work to schedule doctor appointments and other personal needs on those days whenever possible.
I’ve shared the sessions we had today for you to see the cool things your kids are doing.
Culture of Reciprocity for Internships and Work-Based Learning:
We are very excited with the amount of students we have interested in WBL and Internships. While we have internally placed a lot of resources into supporting these roles, we still need your help!
I’m hoping our parents can help me bring more opportunities to our students, but I have a request to make this happen. I talked during our community coffee about the need to develop a culture of reciprocity where all of our families of 9th, 10th, 11th, and 12th grade students go all in to support internships for our seniors and a few of our juniors. If we can all commit to this effort and sustain it through the years, we can leverage our collective connections to support the tremendous need we have for internship opportunities for our students. Please reach out to your companies, families, and friends to help us find internship opportunities. If you have a connection for us, please reach out to Casie Zahirsky at zahirskyc@fultonschools.org to help us build the connection.
Finally, I wanted to mention dress code. We honor our students’ individual expression, and we celebrate their ability to make good choices. Please remind students about respecting the learning environment and their peers. I am posting on Teams over the weekend, but I would love your support in reminding them to think through their wardrobe decisions at home.
