By: Ana Gonzalez, Marketing Specialist
October 7, 2021
Student Orientation Week: An Overview
It’s hard to believe that it’s been 30 days since our students started the academic year at Inwood Academy for Leadership Charter School. 30 days of in-school learning. 30 days of hearing the transition bells, seeing the hallways flood with students changing classes. This time, they are wearing masks, staying 3ft apart in the classroom, and ensuring they are hand sanitizing their hands from the moment they enter our building, between each period, and meals.
The reality is, nothing is back to “normal” any
more. But what remains the same is the passion we have in our hearts, the excitement to teach every day, and working together as a family to perform a great academic year. What remains is our core values: Integrity, Honesty, Responsibility, Caring & Restraint.
Our Student Orientation Week began on Monday, August 23rd, and all of us at IAL felt a mix of emotions. It was an exciting week to welcome our students and start a routine again. It was also great to see our returning students and their families expressing how much they missed us. Having new families enter our doors for their parent orientation felt energetic and hopeful.
Each day during orientation week we focused on certain grade levels, making sure we introduced our students to their new teachers, reviewed our values and our expectations. Both our principals, Bianca Mercedes and Mary Hackett, agreed that it’s an exciting time for us as a school. While we want to feel “normal” we realize that normal does not mean exactly the way things used to be. There are new learnings and we want to extend these learnings as we return.
30 days down, what’s next?
Now that school is in full swing, we want to continue to partner with our parents to focus on attendance. Students have a lot to learn this year and the best way to do this is to be in the building. We have expanded our learning opportunities to include extensive tutoring in our after-school program at the Middle School and we are excited to announce that we are starting a full after-school program at our High School. We are very excited about these additional learning and enrichment opportunities.
We know changes are hard. Returning back to school during a pandemic and not knowing any certainty can be overwhelming. But I speak for all of us at Inwood Academy – here, we are family and we will overcome any obstacle, together.
