Dear Salisbury Community School Families and Friends,
Summer has come, and the school year ended very pleasantly here at Salisbury Community School. We got lovely weather for our day at Waterhouses, and our friends from Ripton joined us as well! Students swam, played in the sand, played lawn games, and fished, and it was a super relaxed and fun time. Thanks as always to our lifeguard, Steve Hill, who always does a great job.
The final Friday of the school year we held 5th grade promotion, and was really nice. The 5th (rising 6th!) graders "ran the halls" and slapped the top of a door frame along the way- a yearly tradition. We then had a few words from students and from me, said "bye" to departing staff and families who were aging out, and watched an awesome slideshow the class had put together with their teacher Emmaleigh Sabol. A big "thanks", as well, to Ms. Sabol, who always puts a lot into the kids having a really meaningful end of the year.
On the last Thursday of the year we concluded our CLIf "Year of the Book" with an author/illustrator talk with Ashley Wolff, which was a great way to end our string of authors and illustrators that the Children's Literacy Foundation supported us in providing for our students this year. Jason Chin, Ted Scheu, Natalie Kinsey-Warnock, Ashley Wolff- it's been great. And so many books for our kids! Thank you especially to Cassie Willner and Duncan McDougall from CLIf, and to Megan Sutton for organizing it for SCS.
And on the last day students packed up and said goodbye with a fun tradition: they all got on our two busses at the end of the day and took a few loops around the bus circle honking and waving. As you can imagine, it's kind of a loud event with all the screaming of "Bye!" and "See you next year!" (or just random yelling for fun). Once the busses had all the right students in the right places, and were leaving for real, it was very bittersweet to stand outside at the end and wave goodbye
Bittersweet in my case because I also was at an ending: the end of my time as Principal of Salisbury Community School. While I really feel excited to resume my original profession of teaching, as opposed to administering, it is tempered by the fact that I will genuinely miss everything. I have really had a great time here, and have felt truly proud to be the principal of this school, in this great community, with such an awesome staff and supportive group of parents.
I could and should thank everyone under the sun, because so many people have had such an amazing and positive impact on me over my three years. In order to spare the reader, however, I will only do so generally:
Thank you to the Salisbury Faculty, whose professionalism and bag of tricks I was fortunate enough to get to learn from every day. Thank you to the amazing Support Staff, who actually run the place and keep everything ticking. Thank you to FOSCS (especially an awesome core crew- you know who you are!) who bring such life to the school and are so kind and thoughtful toward others. Thank you too, FOSCS, for my wonderful parting gifts of the signed pictures of the school and playground. Thank you to ACSD administration, operations, and facilities, who are great to work with and really give a ton of support to the school (and to me!). Finally, thank you to SCS parents, families, and caregivers who do so much, and who partner with us so well to communicate about the children in our care. It works best when we are a team, and the Salisbury team is strong!
I will take the risk to thank one person in particular, though: Donna Simpson. Donna, in her role as Administrative Assistant par excellence, could not be a better partner for a principal, and is just the best human being. Donna is excellent at her job, super organized, thoughtful, smart, tough, observant, and funny, and I think we had a fun time steering the ol' SCS ship together. Thanks for everything Donna, and thanks for being so welcoming and supportive; your kindness is a blessing for me and us all.
Finally, thank you to Salisbury itself- as a place and a community. The town of Salisbury is a gem, filled with friendly, caring, and connected people. It is a town where people work hard, and appreciate the hard work of others. People really look out for each other and try to talk about things like neighbors- even when dealing with something like a school, which can sometimes seem rigid or institutional. I always felt valued as the town's principal, and never felt attacked or disparaged for my role. I have been welcomed into the community in so many ways, and am lucky to have had so many chances to interact with it, and you, outside of the walls of SCS. I feel like I will be forever connected to this place. Thank you Salisbury.
As a reminder- I won't be far. I'm really excited to be returning to the classroom as a Social Studies teacher at Middlebury Union Middle School, where I will be teaching on the 8th grade team. I think it's pretty neat that I will be able to teach so many of my old students over the years at MUMS! Parents, I look forward to parent conferences (or running into each other at the gas pumps at Middlebury Beef Supply, which is likely to happen even sooner).
All the best,
Bjarki
