Director's View

Happy Fall, Y'all!

Dr. Vic Wilson, Executive Director, CLAS

Happy Fall everyone,

Can you believe we are more than a quarter of the way through the school year? By the time you receive this edition of the newsletter, the Fall sports calendar will be nearing the end of the regular season. I hope you have had a chance to go see your students perform. If not, you still have time, and you also have the playoffs. Get out there and support your students and your peers who lead them. Go Lions, and Tigers, and Bears, oh my. (Go Redtops, and Purple Cats, and Flying Squadron too.)

This October, we celebrated principals and assistant principals. In fact, I hope we celebrate all educational leaders as much as possible; however, October was National Principals Month, and we specifically highlight the work of our building-level leaders. CLAS was very intentional about honoring this group for the entire month of October. The State Board of Education recognized the following leaders during their October meeting. Governor Ivey will also honor the these administrators with a proclamation signing. Congrats to all the winners.

Pictured (L to R): Dr. Eric Mackey, State Superintendent of Education; Mr. Kyle Futral, Holtville High School and High School Principal of the Year; Mrs. Brigett Stewart, Piedmont Elementary School and Alabama’s NAESP National Distinguished Principal; Ms. Andrea Datson, Riverton Elementary School and Elementary Assistant Principal of the Year; Ms. Ashley Bowling, Florence Middle School and Secondary Assistant Principal of the Year; Dr. Larry Haynes, Oak Mountain Middle School and Middle School Principal of the Year.

We had an election in November, and I hope you took the time to vote. Your vote is important, and I know that you will use your voice and your vote. Craft your narrative or someone will craft if for you. Engage your elected leaders on issues of importance to you. The CLAS Legislative Platform will be voted on by the CLAS Board at the December meeting. Thereafter, we will get the platform out to our members. As always, we are here to advocate for educational leaders and education in our state, and we encourage you to let us know how we can help you with your leadership journey.

We also ask you to share the great things happening in your school and system. We love celebrating these things with our members, and we are happy to highlight your story in the Friday Update. Simply shoot us an email, and we will help you get the good word out to everyone.

We have a new podcast, and we hope you will take the time to listen and give us feedback. The podcast is called The PrincipAL Truth, and we will discuss educational leadership through the lens of the building level leaders. Hopefully, we can gain valuable insight on the work done to help principals lead their schools, and we can share those great stories with our members and others.

I encourage you to reach out to Dr. Demica Sanders if you have a question about professional learning. Dr. Sanders and the professional learning department work hard to ensure that our members have access to the best possible professional learning. However, we cannot do that without feedback from you. We read and use data from our surveys, and we also rely on you to let us know about your needs for professional learning.

Finally, many of your schools have been nominated by your superintendent for the CLAS School of Distinction and CLAS Banner School Awards. The nominations open each October, and it’s important for you to communicate with your superintendent about nominating your school’s programs for this prestigious award. Whether or not your school is a recipient, it’s always great to be recognzied by your superintendent and it helps craft the narrative in your community that you are doing great things.

As always, we are here to help you in your leadership journey. Simply let us know how we can assist.

Finally, remember to craft your narrative or someone will craft it for you.

Sincerely,

Vic Wilson