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Friday Edition

May 14, 2010

Dear Lovejoy Community:

I am completing my fifth year as your superintendent and I continue to feel blessed to serve this community in that role. While I am proud of the work of our faculty and staff as well as the accomplishments of the Lovejoy ISD children, this school system has the potential for continuous improvement. I value your direct and honest feedback as we partner to offer the best possible educational experience for each child in Lovejoy.

Today, I am taking this opportunity to reflect on our work as a community in raising healthy and happy children. Five years ago, we spent a good deal of time studying the Lovejoy Way to ensure that we replicated that experience as we opened our secondary schools. To that end, we developed the Lovejoy Graduate Profile to ensure that we continued to develop our kids in ways other than academics. Our kids learn best from the behavior we model and I would like for all of us to reflect on the attribute of “Fair and Respectful of Others”.

As we move out of the local political season, I wonder if we would give ourselves high marks on this attribute. I have read a lot of email communication that might not rise to the level of fair and/or respectful. Please understand that I respect each individual’s right to decide if their communication is fair and/or respectful and I am asking you to do just that.

One of the most important jobs that I have is to share information about the school district to all taxpayers. During the election season, I received a lot of questions about specific issues and sometimes I received requests to clarify the facts through Email Express. I am reluctant to do that when we are in election season because it could appear that my communication is politically motivated. The stance I took over the last few weeks was to respond directly to individuals. I did respond to one query about Willow Springs Middle School in Email Express because the patron who asked stated she was going to post my answer on the web. If my answer was going to be published anyway, I decided that I would be the publisher of my own content.

Now that the school board election is over, I would like to clear up some issues that people have been asking about:

• It is false that the superintendent and athletic director have a hidden agenda to grow this school district to a 5A high school. If it were up to me, growth would stop at our current enrollment. We are large enough to offer a rich array of course offerings and small enough to know you and your child. Why would anyone believe that Coach Puckett would prefer anything other than 3A competition, where we have been very successful at the district and state levels?

• Our academic program was called “idiotic”. Is there evidence to support that? Your children are scoring in the top 1-2% of all Texas schools for commended performance (mastery) on our state assessments. Our state assessments are fully aligned to national curricular standards and are rigorous. The PSAT data that we have on the Class of 2010 is among the very best in the State of Texas. College admissions and scholarships are very successful for the Class of 2010. Just this month, Lovejoy was recognized as the best small district in the state by the H-E-B Excellence in Education award. When this type of statement is made during the election cycle, some of our taxpayers who do not pay much attention to the district’s academic performance may draw erroneous conclusions.

• I very much want our teachers to be insulated from the political fray so that they can stay focused on teaching and their relationships with your children. This political season, one of the candidates sent communication to every teacher on a campus that contained the following statement: “I have taken a very close look and I am greatly concerned with the level at which our children are actually learning.  It scares me to death to see any children unprepared for life after high school.”  While I am sure that the candidate intended these remarks to reflect unfavorably on our current board of trustees, I have been told that our teachers considered it an indictment of their work.

• In another public setting, a candidate shared an allegation about a specific teacher saying something inappropriate to a child. Several months ago, the campus administrators had investigated this allegation, and all of the students present in the immediate vicinity of where the incident allegedly occurred were adamant that nothing inappropriate was said. Please do not publicly criticize the work of our teachers until and unless you have verified the accuracy of the information that you are sharing.

• Finally, it is imperative that the Lovejoy ISD have a collaborative and positive relationship with all municipalities within our boundaries. We understand that the future of this school district is dependent on both Lucas and Fairview continuing to manage growth and avoid high-density housing. Our board adopted a resolution in 2007 in support of continued low-density housing, and the board and administration continue to support just that.

As the chief executive officer of the school district, the buck does stop on my desk. I welcome your direct and honest feedback and am open to talk with you about any of the challenges and opportunities we face as a community. I respect each person’s right to his or her opinion and the right to express it.

With Respect,

Ted Moore

Superintendent

Lovejoy ISD

P.S. Late breaking news: LHS freshman Katie Ruhala won the 3200-meter run in the State Class 3A Track Meet. More details on our kids accomplishments next week….