Dr. John Sample
Proud Superintendent
Often times I address the community relationships we value and our progress as it relates to student achievement. For this edition, I wanted to provide a glimpse into Merrill Area Public Schools each as an organization and the efforts we take on behalf of our employees.
The culture and climate of any organization is important. School districts in particular value employee morale as teaching is a labor of love and presents many daily challenges on many different levels.
This year, we are focusing on two priority areas: resiliency and service excellence. Meeting the needs of our students requires personal resiliency. Resiliency is defined as the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness and the ability of a substance or object to spring back into shape; elasticity. In order to meet the needs of our students, our teachers and staff must be resilient. They must be able to meet their own needs before having the ability to satisfy the needs of their students.
Service excellence is the ability of the provider (staff and administration) to consistently meet and manage expectations. While service excellence was typically a term used in the medical field with patients, education has adopted this strategy to effectively meet the expectations of our parents. One way we are able to determine our progress is by surveying our parents at the beginning and end of each school year. This provides us with the necessary data to improve the service excellence we provide.
Our Director of Human Resources, Cindy Heinz, facilitates two separate committees designed to address these two areas and to maintain a positive culture and climate. The Employee Recognition Committee works as a team to strategically develop an action plan to recognize service excellence throughout the District in ways that are meaningful to staff and promote a positive climate in the workplace. The People and Culture Committee strategically develops and implements an action plan that will promote a culture of trust and respect, the opportunity to learn, feel valued and take pride in the workplace. Both of these committees consist of teachers, support staff and administrators volunteering their time for the improvement of MAPS.
It is our philosophy that we need to be at our best in order to provide our students and parents with quality service. Our students, and their success, will always remain our highest priority and the partnership we maintain with our parents is important to this success.
In other MAPS news, this is a magical time of the year to enjoy the talents of our students during their annual Holiday Concerts. Here are our remaining concerts:
Dec 11 – Kate Goodrich, Grades K-2, 6:30 p.m. at MHS Auditorium
Dec 12 – Kate Goodrich, Grades 3-5, 6:30 p.m. at MHS Auditorium
Dec 14 – Prairie River Middle School Choir Concert, 7:00 p.m. at PRMS Auditorium
Dec 18 – Merrill High School Choir Concert, 7:00 p.m. at MHS Auditorium
Dec 19 – Maple Grove School, All Grades, 6:30 p.m. at MHS Auditorium
Dec 21 – Merrill High School Band Concert, 7:00 p.m. at MHS Auditorium
As a reminder, the last day of school for students before the winter break will be Friday, December 22. We will welcome them back on Tuesday, January 2, 2018.
From our Bluejay family to yours, we wish you the happiest of holidays and all of the best for the New Year!