Hello, December! It’s hard to believe that this is the first week of December and the last month of the year. Time flies when you are having fun!
Our Winter Break will be here soon and the first semester of the school year will end shortly after. Our scholars have been participating in their Learning Labs, attending one-on-one sessions with their teachers, and working incredibly hard to succeed in their classes. Our learning coaches have been supporting their scholars by attending Coaches’ Corner sessions and meeting with our teachers during Parent-Teacher Conferences.
Earlier this year we focused on our core values of achievement and respect. Our scholars shared their accomplishments with us and explained what respect means to them. This month, it’s all about our core value of teamwork! We’re encouraging scholars, learning coaches and staff to share what teamwork means to them and why it’s important.
Teamwork occurs when two or more people work cooperatively to accomplish a common goal. It’s an integral part of life that helps us successfully achieve our goals or responsibilities in a timely manner. Working in teams encourages everyone to combine their knowledge and use their skills to complete tasks and create finished projects. For example, parents are sometimes required to work in teams at their jobs to accomplish business goals. The legal advisor has to work on a team with the financial advisor and the IT advisor. We’re also required to work in teams in our personal lives. Without teamwork, it would be challenging to accomplish anything.
It’s essential that scholars understand the importance of teamwork and learn to work with others from an early age. Understanding teamwork will help them achieve their goals throughout their adulthood. This month we are encouraging our learning coaches to talk about teamwork with their scholars and help them successfully work in teams. Later this month, we will share a few different ways that parents can inspire their children to value teamwork.
Teamwork is an integral part of the Compass community. Our teachers and staff are passionate about working with each other, our scholars and learning coaches to improve the overall experience at Compass. This means that we join together by listening to each other and taking unified action to enhance our scholars’ experiences. At Compass, we have a few different ways to work in teams. We have our Scholar Leadership Council for scholars, Parent Advisory Council for learning coaches (as well as our Coaches’ Corner sessions), Staff Advisory Committee for staff, and a number of collaborative teams for our staff as well. These are just a few of the ways I am trying to encourage our Compass family to work together in teams to grow our school, especially as Compass is not one individual’s school, but all of ours and these teams allow us to hear from everyone to continue to enhance, expand, and improve the overall Compass experience
Our team is also dedicated to setting a good example for our scholars as they help them learn about the importance of teamwork and how to successfully work with others. Teamwork cannot be accomplished without investment in ourselves and those around us. Our staff is fully invested in CCS and our scholars, and we will all continue to model teamwork in all that we do, with every stakeholder we engage with.
Throughout December, scholars are invited to wear the color yellow every Friday and on field trips to represent our core value, teamwork. To further this celebration, scholars are also encouraged to share stories and pictures about teamwork in our brief survey, and on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. We want to hear from all of our scholars to learn about what teamwork means to them and why it’s an important skill. Being part of CCS is to be part of our Compass community, and one of the things our community does is work together to achieve success!
As Mattie Stephanek once said, “unity is strength… when there is teamwork and collaboration, wonderful things can be achieved.” We are sharing the importance of teamwork with our scholars in hopes of guiding them in the right direction. I strongly encourage all of our scholars to share what teamwork means to them this month and to continue working together!
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Compass Charter Schools (CCS) is a WASC-accredited virtual charter school that serves families throughout California. Have a question about Compass Charter Schools? Explore our website, or feel free to contact me directly at jlewis@compasscharters.org or (818) 824-6233.