Business/Community Open House at @NavasotaInt

Last week I wrote this post about planning our first ever "Business/Community Open House" at the school I'm now Principal of, Navasota Intermediate.  Well yesterday was the day!

We passed out over 150 postcards to local businesses inviting them to come walk the halls of our school and hear our vision for a new school year.  I didn't know if anyone would show up.  I was nervous.  This was kind of like my "first big thing" as a principal and I really wanted it to succeed.  I so believe in the power of bringing every stakeholder together to reach a child.  But I also know Rome wasn't built in a day.  I also know that when you come into a community that has never been asked to be a part of a child's education (without some monetary expectation) that sometimes it takes a little time.  But I also believe in the impossible.

We held our Open House from 1-4pm yesterday.  My wonderful two office ladies, Rachel and Rosalia (with a little help from a couple of our amazing teachers), set up a beautiful welcome table (decked out in Superhero stuff, cause that's our theme this year).  Rachel brought her fine china, we had cheese, crackers, cookies, grapes, and bottled water.   It looked GREAT!

And right on time at 1pm, the steady stream of community members began.  We had over 20 guests during the 3 hour period.  People from the local newspaper, fire department, police squad, local business owners, interested parents, and even the City Manager and City Mayor!!!  And what I love about the district I work in?  We had almost every single upper administrator stop by and tour as well.

My favorite part of the experience?  The conversations.  As I, my instructional coach Aaron, and my Assistant Principal Terry, walked people down the halls, it's the conversations that most touched my heart.

The citizens were elated.  They were excited to tour a school most had never seen.  But even more so, they were honored to be asked to come onto our campus.  And the best?  They all want to come back!

We shared our classrooms, our new makerspace, our new science lab, our teacher PLC room, the library, and so much more.  We shared our vision with teaching in the PBL model, and that's what got them most excited.  They loved the ideas.  Especially when we asked the business owners to send our kiddos problems they were having at their businesses and let our KIDS fix them!  There's a local business that designs office chairs that is going to send a designer to our campus and have our kids design their next chair.  How cool is that???

I said before in my other post, this was a missing piece.  We had about 20 business/community members show up.  That was AMAZING!  But there's still lots more I'd love to reach, and that will take time.  But man we are off to a great start!  The kids can't get here fast enough!

Next stop?  Meet the Teacher!