Shadow-A-Student Day

Last week, Team Selma central office administrators had amazing opportunities to participate in Shadow-a-Student Day.  What an engaging experience!  My scholar was a 5^th grader at Meadowview.

At the start of class, we participated in the morning class meeting where students shared their good news.  Our teacher was funny and it was clear that her rapport with the class was genuine and positive.  My classmates shared about siblings and other family members graduating from college, visits from cousins and helping with Sunday school.  One brave young man even shared that he met his grandfather for the first time over the weekend.  I was happy that he felt safe sharing this with his peers.

We had physical education shortly after this.  As a PE major myself, I looked forward to this.  I jumped circles around my peers while jumping rope during a cardio circuit.  My pushups and sit-ups were pretty impressive too!  I tried not to make my new friends feel bad as some of them struggled more than me to accomplish our tasks. 

Small group reading was next followed by time in the computer center.  My scholar taught me some basics of coding.  She was supportive and very confident.  It was an incredible day.

The following day during our debriefing at our cabinet meeting, I learned that other members of Team Selma had very different experiences.  In short, it’s clear that we have much work to do in order to create equity across all of our schools.  My expectation is that every scholar has the opportunity to thrive in a safe and supportive learning environment.  This activity brought to light that we have work to do in this area.

Fortunately, my team and I are committed to ensuring that our scholars have all that they need to be successful today as well as beyond high school graduation.  This experience further solidified “My why” and made it very clear that we are moving in the right direction.

The pictures speak volumes.  Thanks so much to our teachers, leaders and scholars for making this an excellent learning opportunity!

For more information, email me at avis.williams@selmacityschools.org