As almost everyone is aware, an incident occurred recently that captured not only the attention of the press but, more importantly, the conscience of our community.

On a recent weekend, several of our young people participated in a drinking game with anti-Semitic implications.  A picture was posted, a blog was written, and the story went viral.  The most significant outcome, however, has not been the coverage abroad but the difficult yet meaningful discussions here at home – discussions about decision-making, about underage drinking, about the use and misuse of social media, and certainly about anti-Semitism and other forms of hurtful discrimination based on religion, race, culture, or sexual orientation.  I am grateful to the families who have used this as an opportunity to reflect with their children.  I am grateful to our teachers who have had conversations about the various issues with their students.  And I am grateful to the many young people in this community who continue to consider how this incident may positively impact the decisions they will make in the future.

This incident has called for thoughtful action on the part of our entire community - and our community has responded.  We are working with The Jewish Center of Princeton to host an event at the high school on May 4 for Holocaust Remembrance Day.  We are partnering with Corner House to offer a program on May 18th focused on underage drinking and parent host liability. We are also in conversation with the Princeton Public Library to develop a forum on the power and potential problems associated with the use and misuse of social media.

We are looking at a timely response to this situation but also at a timeless one.  We want to ensure that the issues raised by this event are ones we talk about more immediately with students but also ones about which we deepen students' understanding in the years to come.  As educators, we are looking at those points in our curriculum where we can augment students’ understanding of the Holocaust and of other acts of genocide.  We are considering ways to underscore students’ thoughtful and ethical use of social media.  And we are continuing to explore the ways we can work with parents and community partners to help students make healthy and legal choices about drugs and alcohol.

As I shared in a recent message to the families at Princeton High School, we are defined not by the difficulties we encounter in our lives but by how we face them.  As we continue to face this difficulty, I know that we will do so in the spirit of all that is right with our community – we will do so with honesty and integrity, with respect for different points of view, and with compassion for all of the people affected both within and beyond our town.
  
I hope we do so as well with a vision of what we can become as a school district and as a community – leaders in the areas of health and wellness, ethical decision making, and respect and affirmation for all races, religions, and cultures.

This month, school districts across New Jersey are once again administering PARCC, the state-mandated assessment designed to measure the progress of students in achieving the Common Core standards in language arts and mathematics.  And, once again, there will be vigorous debate about the potential merits and misuses of this new, computer-based test. 

The Princeton Public Schools have proven to be a safe space for healthy debates on topics such as standardized tests and we want to continue to honor that openness.  We also, however, want to shift the overall conversation in education from one focusing on standardization to one focusing on innovation. And to shift the conversation, we must shift the paradigm. 

Schools are places of hope.  They hold the hopes we have for our children. They hold the hopes our children have for themselves.   They hold the hopes we, as a community, have for the future.

As we celebrate the start of a new year, I am delighted to share a few of my hopes for our schools in 2016.

• I hope for a year of wellness.  “Joy and purpose” are central tenets of our new mission statement.  They stand in contrast to a national epidemic in which one in four high school students reports feeling “extremely stressed” all the time.  We have focused on reducing stress through initiatives such as “homework free” holidays.  We are also the first district in the country to focus explicitly on the science of joy through our work with the Positive Psychology program out of U. Penn.  Positive Psychology looks at those behaviors that lead people to function at optimal levels physically, emotionally, intellectually, socially.  The logic is simple: students who feel better perform better. 
• I hope for a year of innovation and engagement in teaching and learning.  Our Staff Development Day on Feb. 12 will be focused on this topic.  We will celebrate and share our own best practices.  We will look at brain research, questioning strategies, and the importance of student choice as we strive to ensure all students are connected to topics in ways that engage their curiosity and inspire deep and rigorous exploration of ideas.
• I hope for a year of honest conversations about race.  In a post-Ferguson, post-Chicago world, there is a powerful need to have meaningful conversations about race and culture.  On Feb. 19, teams of students and staff from all 15 high schools in Mercer County will be coming together for a Day of Dialogue.  The purpose will be to hold those conversations and to develop plans to increase acceptance and understanding within their schools and across our county.  
• I hope for a year in which digital access for every student is finally achieved.  Through donations from PEF, we have been steadily rolling out laptops and free internet access to the more than 150 students in our district who have previously been without. 
• I hope for a year in which we expand our support for non-English speaking families.  We have recently partnered with the Human Services Commission of our municipality to create the shared position of Bilingual Parent Liaison.  The goal of this exciting collaboration is to more holistically provide for the needs of every child in our district.
• I hope for a year of increased sustainability.  We have created School and District Green Teams to focus this year on working with students to analyze energy use, enliven our recycling program, and expand our work with food and gardens.
• I hope for a year of increased communication.  In February, we will be conducting a communications audit.  We will bring together at least 10 focus groups of parents, students, teachers, staff, and community members to help us evaluate how we can most effectively share our mission and our message.

Wellness and Balance was the first of the five goals identified last Spring by our Strategic Planning Steering Committee.  At a time when there is national concern about historically high levels of stress and competition among high school students, Wellness and Balance is about redefining success and reigniting the joy of learning.  It is a goal about reducing anxiety and, at the same time, increasing achievement.  It is a goal about slowing our students down so they can actually learn better, play better, feel better.

Recently, the Wellness section of the New York Times, carried an interview with Dawn Scott, the fitness coach for the US Women’s National Soccer Team. The women’s team not only won the World Cup in July but went on to dominate a host of other international competitions throughout the summer. Their ascendance on the world stage begged the question: How did they get so fit?
I was struck by the answer Ms. Scott gave when asked to name the single greatest change she brought to the fitness of the team:  “Recovery,” she said. 

She then went on to explain: “The American team was already famous for its conditioning. The women had always done a lot of running. But when I came in, they weren’t devoting the same resources to recovery, which I thought was a problem. To me, recovery is such a massive aspect of overall fitness. It’s what prepares you for the next session or game. If you don’t recover, you start the next session tired and that sets you up for poor performance or injury.”

When I read that quote, I thought of our kids. They are amazing students often functioning at a very high level, but they describe themselves as always running. Class to class, activity to activity, event to event, assignment to assignment. How much better might they perform, if we built in time for recovery?

To be sure, the culture of running is in the ethos here. It comes from our community, from the colleges, from the kids themselves.  But what can we do as a school system to change the culture?  What can we do to inspire our kids to want to run incredibly hard, but also to recognize the need to recover?  What can we do to help them slow down enough to prevent injury and, at the same time, optimize their performance physically, artistically, intellectually? 

Our district’s focus this year on Wellness is designed to do just that.  We have already implemented “Homework Free” periods in our calendar with the intent of providing our students with time throughout the year when they can mentally step away from focusing on homework, projects, and studying for tests.  Our hope is that during these “recovery” times students will focus instead on reading for pleasure, spending time with family and friends, enjoying activities outside, and attending concerts, plays and athletic events.

Just as periods of physical recovery allow hard working athletes to bring their performance to an even higher level, so too, does mental recovery allow our students to process what they’ve learned, recharge their creative batteries and raise the level of their academic performance.

The simple truth is that our students learn more, work harder and perform better when they are relaxed, well-rested and personally engaged in their academic experience.  Our goal in the Princeton Public Schools is to do all we can to promote those conditions. 
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Over the course of the next few months, our Action Team on Wellness and Balance will be working to design a blueprint of long-range measures that will build into our culture the recovery, the resiliency, and the relationships that will prepare them to fulfill our mission and to truly lead lives of joy and purpose. 

The Princeton Public Schools began the 2015-16 school year not only with new contracts, new excitement, and new students, but with a bold new strategic plan that establishes a clear vision and direction for the future. 
The plan begins with a Mission Statement -- a single sentence that represents the core values of our community and our hopes for the students we serve. 
“The mission of the Princeton Public Schools is to prepare all students to lead lives of joy and purpose as knowledgeable, creative, and compassionate citizens of a global society.”

Reflect for a moment on the words in that statement that may resonate with you.  

ALL students.  Every one. 

JOY and PURPOSE.  Rare and refreshing words in a school mission statement. Nowhere does the mission statement reference getting into an Ivy League college or making a lot of money.  A different, larger definition of success is at work here.  The goal is for our students to experience joy and meaning in their lives regardless of what pathway they may take -- and to experience it in the present, not at the end of some educational or economic rainbow. 
Do we want our students to have extensive and in-depth content knowledge?  Absolutely.  We also want them to have creativity and compassion.  All three are essential -- although not all three can be easily measured. 

And finally, in the mission statement, we are explicit about our students becoming citizens of the world -- with all the cultural, linguistic, political and technological understanding that comes with that responsibility. 
This mission statement, this single sentence, drives the work that we do and the direction we have established as a district. 
So what is the work ahead of us in the next three to five years?  We have identified the following five goals for which we are currently developing detailed action plans:

• Wellness and balance for students and staff
• Ensure that every child is known as a person and as a learner
• Promote equity and access in ways that effectively eliminate the "achievement" or opportunity gap
• Inspire innovation and experimentation in both teaching and learning
• Promote a culture of care, connectedness, and communication across the district, between home and school, and throughout our broader community

And just as important as our goals are the ways we go about achieving them.  The following overarching values guide the ethos and culture of our work as educators:

• Our schools are places of partnership where educators work closely with one another, where relationships with families are forged, and where collaborations with individuals and organizations across our community and throughout the world support the highest levels of teaching and learning.
• Our schools are places of innovation where curiosity is sparked, risk-taking is encouraged, and where problems are viewed as opportunities for deeper understanding and creative solutions.
• Our schools are places of care where every child is known, every culture valued, and where kindness and courage are modeled.

In the coming year, I will comment on each of our strategic planning goals in greater depth.  For now, I am extraordinarily excited to welcome back our students, staff and families and to join them in a joyful year of learning.