Citizens of the City of Danville, the Town of Gretna and the Pittsylvania County area, I write this open letter as a reflection on my summer and all of this past year’s accomplishments that you have shared and made possible for our students at Gretna Middle School. If I omit someone or some civic organization and fail to acknowledge you by name, please for give this writer for my oversight.

As I attended my summer institute Schools and Community: Roots Democracy, I recalled all of the accomplishments that our students were able to achieve this past year with your help. Our Gretna Middle Junior Beta Club was able to successfully sponsor its first Winter Ball, which served as a fund-raiser for our organization to attend both its second annual State Convention and its first annual Jr. Beta National Convention. With your support parents and community, the Beta students were able to host a community program of mentoring by pairing our youth with an elder in our “Adopt-a-Grandparent” program. Thanks to the efforts of parents and businesses who supported our efforts both financially and with your physical presence and hard work, we were able to excel with many accomplishments and awards. As the speakers of our institute emphasized we should be a community-based educational system, we have seen “first hand” how we can succeed jointly. Thank you parents for supporting our children and helping us as educators to do our jobs more effectively.

This article will be remiss if I omitted our neighboring City of Danville and the Danville Register & Bee for finding sponsors in our business community to fund the NIE (Newspapers in Education) newspapers for my classroom for the past two years. Not only did you sponsor my classroom, but you have found sponsors for other classrooms in my building simply by me making a phone call, and appeal or passing your phone number along to a colleague. Wednesday’s highlight for most of our students is reading the newspaper. The newspapers that they in turn take home and share with their parents. Thank you for providing this link in our community.

My primary goal is to serve as a Title I reading teacher. To do that job I have needed and received the support of our Title I parents. Thank you Title I PAC past and present officers and members. You have devoted your time and energy to our projects and Christmas town parades. Continue to be involved with your children as they leave us and watch them continue to grow and excel.

As I listened to and spoke with leaders like former Governor of New York, Mario Cuomo; innovative educator, Corla Hawkins; and former Director of Teacher Corps and Commissioner of Education, U.S. Department of Education, William L. Smith; they left me with two key thoughts from this summer institute on how the school and community serve as the roots of democracy. One, it really does take as the African proverb says, “a whole village to raise a child”. The community is that village, and in our diverse society, the school is the center of that village. And two, our schools belong to the community. Once the parents and staff both realize this, then change can occur to improve the function of our schools – to educate our children by showing them how to become life long learners. As you can see that this is really my motto in life. I am a dedicated life long learner.

And finally, thank you, Star-Tribune for publishing our past, present and hopefully, future news articles. Thank you for helping us to keep the community informed and giving me space to express some sentiments that are often thought, but seldom said.