A Word From Our CEO: Let’s Celebrate!

Welcome, May! April was certainly a busy month for Compass and things are not slowing down anytime soon. We have a lot to celebrate throughout the month of May!

This month we continue to celebrate The Energy Bus Principles by recognizing Principle 4: Fuel Your Ride with Positive Energy and Principle 5: Transform Negativity. All month long we invite our scholars to think about how they can fuel their ride with positive energy. We encourage them to think about the types of positive energy that can fuel their bus, and how they can turn negativity into positive energy to fuel their bus ride both inside and outside of the classroom. Principle 4 is also great to recognize this month, as we celebrate our staff through a number of special events and encourage our scholars and learning coaches to fuel the rides of our team with positive energy!

First, please join us next week to celebrate National Charter Schools Week. We’ll be sharing important facts about charter schools and the positive impact they have on so many families across the country, and right here in California through Compass Charter Schools. According to a 2017 nationally representative survey from the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, enrollment at charter schools is on the rise across the country. In fact, during the 2017-18 school year, over 7,000 charter schools enrolled nearly 3.2 million scholars. That’s an increase in enrollment of more than 150,000 scholars from the previous school year – a five percent increase! The report also showed that more than 300 new charter schools opened across the country.  
I invite you to join our National Charter Schools Week celebration by posting, tweeting, tagging and sharing pictures and videos with us, using #CharterSchoolsWeek. Please share why you enjoy being part of our Compass family!

Next week we will also celebrate our wonderful teachers, during National Teacher Appreciation Week. Our teachers dedicate countless hours to support our scholars and their families, and it’s time to celebrate them. We will also be celebrating California Day of the Teacher on Wednesday, May 9. One way our scholars and learning coaches can celebrate is by nominating their teachers for the Compass Employee of Year Award. Our scholars are also invited to send thank-you letters to their teachers, to express thanks, perhaps, for an “aha” moment from a Learning Lab or from a one-on-one meeting they had with their teacher, counselor, or another member of our amazing team. We also invite everyone to join us on social media throughout the week, using the hashtags #ThankATeacher and #DayOfTheTeacher, to share their favorite memories about their teachers.

Our final major celebration will be to celebrate our amazing staff during Classified School Employees Week, which is May 20-26.  The theme this year is “The Heartbeat of our Schools” and I couldn’t agree more … our staff, including our teachers, counselors, administrators and more, are our heroes.  We invite scholars and learning coaches to join us on social media throughout the week, using #CSEW2018, to share their favorite memories of the staff at Compass who have been their hero.

As we celebrate National Charter Schools Week, National Teacher Appreciation Week, California Day of the Teacher, and Classified School Employees Week, I also invite you to join me in giving back to Compass. Our Annual Fund is used to increase and enhance our engagement opportunities for our scholars and I would like to personally ask our community to join me in giving back as we celebrate throughout this month of May. Join me with either a one-time or monthly gift to help Compass enhance the Compass Experience for our scholars!

This year Compass has made some incredible changes to improve our programs and continues to move forward to better support our scholars and their families.  I would love to hear from you and encourage all of our stakeholders (scholars, learning coaches, staff, and community) to complete our 2018 Planning Survey.  I also invite you to share feedback with us through the suggestion boxes on our homepage, or directly with me.
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I am truly thankful to all of our teachers, staff, scholars, and families who dedicate their time and resources to make Compass Charter Schools the premier virtual learning community throughout central and southern California. This month is a time to recognize all of our hard work, so let’s celebrate and fuel everyone’s ride with positive energy!