This school year has been without precedent in so many ways. The spring semester of this year brought with it a global health pandemic that brought school closures for the remainder of the year and continues to bring uncertainty for our daily lives and next school year. These circumstances could have brought us to lose sight of our vision and mission as a school community, but the community of Gilbert High School chose differently. Instead of giving up on our goals, our teachers, students, staff, families, and community became determined to take care of one another no matter the challenges that we were facing. We chose to ensure that every child was contacted each week to find out how they were doing personally, to address any needs that they had while at home, and to let them know that they were loved and cared for by our faculty and staff. Our food service staff, transportation staff, GHS faculty, and staff chose to ensure that no child would go hungry because they were without access to school breakfast and lunch by participating in the school lunch program and even delivering meals to those who did not have transportation. Our teachers chose to immerse themselves in learning about best practices for delivering online instruction, collaborated to create engaging and meaningful lessons for distance learning, and modified for students who had limited access to technology.
Gilbert High School is committed to the belief that “We are crew, not passengers”. This phrase exemplifies the fact that each student, teacher, and staff member is an active participant in the work of growing as effective learners, ethical people, and contributors to a better world. We know that this work does not happen by accident or on its own. Rather, it comes from a shared sense of responsibility among all stakeholders that we are committed to becoming more than we thought possible, together. During the school closure brought on the Covid-19 pandemic, this shared focus was on full display. All of our stakeholders came together by regularly communicating, celebrating one another, appreciating one another, and encouraging one another to continue to ensure that each student continued to have access to high-quality instruction, strong relationships with teachers and peers, and a focus on social, emotional, and physical well-being. I have never been more proud of this learning community than I was during this unusual school year.
Finally, we closed out the school year with a graduation ceremony that looked very different from years past. Although we were in masks, socially distanced, and with a smaller number of people than before, our students, faculty, staff, and families came together to have the first graduation held on Leonard Price Field in Tomahawk Stadium in Gilbert High history. This event allowed us to put a punctuation mark on this school year that was in so many ways representative of the perseverance, pride, and maturity that the class of 2020 embodied in all that they do. I know that this class will go on to be a part of creating a better world because of their empathy, integrity, and growth mindset.
As we celebrate the end of this school year, we have learned a great deal about what is most essential to learning. What we have found is that relationships that raise expectations for students and teachers are the most important aspect of what we do each day. Because of our focus on this throughout the past five years as a partner school with EL Education, we were able to benefit from the close relationships to support everyone in the learning community as we transitioned quickly into a time of distance learning. Our relationships with our students, their families, and our community were what gave us the blueprint for finding a way to ensure the success of each student no matter their access to technology, hardships faced at home, and the general uncertainty that we all faced during this truly unprecedented time. This gives me hope for the future and instills confidence in all of us that we will navigate the uncharted waters of this next school year with an undeterred focus on achieving our mission and vision. I look forward to working alongside our dedicated teachers, counselors, staff, students, and families this year to empower and inspire each child to design the future.
Respectfully,
Jacob Nelson
Principal, Gilbert High School
