Inside TSD September 2023

The September 2023 episode of Inside TSD is now available for listening! Also find the transcript below.

Hello and welcome to Inside TSD. I'm your host, superintendent of the Troy School District, Dr. Rich Machesky. Welcome to the 2023-24 school year, we have had, and I am not exaggerating, one of the best starts to a school year that I can remember in my 15-year history with the Troy School District. Our school year started on August 29th, but as most of you know, the school year begins well before that when we welcome students back to our buildings, primarily the high schools. Our athletic teams are back. Our cheerleaders are back. Our marching bands are back. They're working really hard during the month of August in preparation for the coming school year. But it's also important to know there are so many other individuals who are involved in making sure we start our school year, the best ever.

We welcomed our teachers back on August 22nd to our annual Welcome Back event. This event takes place at Athens in the auditorium, we usually have about 1,000 or so individuals in the auditorium at that time. This year, we had well over 1,000 individuals in the auditorium. We welcomed teachers, we welcomed support staff, our administrators, of course, we welcomed in bus drivers and custodians, our support staff, anyone interested in being a part of our Welcome Back was included this year, and I have to say it was one of the biggest crowds, such great electricity. We started with the marching band from Troy High, who spent a couple minutes really getting the crowd fired up. And then I had an opportunity to take the stage and talk about our focus for the year. And our focus for the year is belonging. The Troy School District is a place where everyone belongs and it's our job as individuals within our school district to make sure that we're creating an open environment, that we're welcoming in all that we do, our students, our staff, our parent community, to the Troy School District, so what a great start.

Following my opening, we had an opportunity to hear from our keynote speakers, two authors who wrote the book When You Wonder, You’re Learning, they discussed how to teach and raise happier, healthier students. Little did I know that these individuals were going to talk about something that had a great impact on my childhood and maybe some of the childhoods for those of you listening and that is Mr. Rogers, how many of us can remember growing up watching Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood, and it just so happened that the authors shaped their message off of the experience that Mr. Rogers provided his listeners and his watchers, to his show, and just how inclusive and welcoming he was able to make young people feel, and just how important that is connecting the ability to feel welcome to feel like you belong and how important that is to connecting to student learning in our classrooms. So what a great message to start the year I know that message was carried over into professional learning that took place in our buildings, again, a spectacular start to the school year.

I want to also just talk a little bit about the other individuals in our school district that helped support the start of our school year. Maintenance and Operations, they don't get a vacation during the summer, our custodians, our grounds, our operations, skilled trades, and so forth, are working all summer to make sure that our buildings are ready for students to return. So I want to provide a huge shout out to those individuals, our Technology Department who makes sure that technology is ready to roll when we start the school year. Our Teaching and Learning staff do a tremendous amount of work over the summer, working with students in summer programming, professional learning for teachers and in preparation for the professional learning to start the school year. So thanks to our Teaching and Learning Department who always do a spectacular job.

As we think about other work that took place during the summer, the students at Troy High were welcomed back to new turf in our stadiums as well as new bleachers and a refinished floor in the gymnasium. I had a chance to tour that and it looks fabulous. Athens students don't worry, we'll be doing the turf at Athens next summer as planned. We also began or continued work in a number of buildings completing the 2013 bond initiative. We did some flooring work in buildings. We did some window and door replacement, some unit ventilator replacement, and so forth in buildings. So just a tremendous amount goes on during the summer that's important for our families and listeners to know.

Another really important amount of work that's happening within our school district is planning for the 2022 bond, the most recently passed bond initiative, I can tell you that planning for the new Smith Middle School is going very well. We are not too far away from final sign-offs that will provide us an opportunity to assure that we are on target for groundbreaking in April of 2024. So this coming spring, we will be breaking ground on the new Smith Middle School, that's about a two-year/24-month build, but really excited to bring a state of the art facility to this community. I also want to mention that planning is well underway for playgrounds at all 12 of our elementary buildings, we plan on replacing 6 playgrounds the summer of 2024, and the other 6 playgrounds the summer of 2025. At the same time, we're also replacing furniture at our elementaries during the 2024 school year as well as the 2025 school year, so a lot to look forward to as it relates to new buildings, fresh look within our buildings, and opportunities for students to take advantage of athletic facilities and playgrounds outside of our buildings.

A couple of upcoming events that are really important for our community to be aware of. At the beginning of every year we look forward to homecoming. Athens will have its spirit week September 18th through the 22nd. The game will take place on the 22nd as well as a dance on the 23rd. Best wishes and good luck to the Redhawks. Troy High School will have their spirit week, October 2nd through the 6th, parade on Friday the 6th followed by the football game, and their dance on October 7th. Best wishes to Colt Nation and their football team. The IA East Olympics will also take place during the week of October 2nd. So good luck to the students at IA East as they participate in their annual Olympics. At the elementary level, of course, this time of the year, there's always fun stuff going on, including fun runs, picture days, there's book fairs coming up, tremendous amount going on at our elementary buildings as well. Additional information on any of the information I provided, or if you're looking for additional, more specific information by all means please visit our building websites.

Congratulations are in order to several individuals across our school district. We in the Troy School District were amongst the first in the state to hire a Director of Safety and Security. We welcome Todd Gilevich to the Troy School District. Very, very fortunate to have Todd and his expertise helping to support safety and security across the Troy School District. We're also excited to have been able to utilize state funds that were made available to school districts for the purpose of supporting safety and security. So Todd will be working to review, analyze, and improve safety and security procedures across our school district. If you happen to see Todd across the school district. Please welcome him to Troy. Also want to take a moment and celebrate some new administrators who are joining us either new to the school district or new to their positions. First is Vernon Burden, who is serving as principal at Athens High School. Vernon comes to us from Lake Orion schools, welcome Vernon. Brian Zawislak, former assistant principal at Troy High, is now principal at Larson Middle School. Kerry Brennan, former teacher at Smith Middle School, is now assistant principal at Troy High School. And joining the team at Athens, Todd Heugh. Todd was a former teacher at Larson and is now athletic coordinator at Athens. Congratulations to all of our new administrators. I think a total of about 11 new administrators across the district starting the school year.

So as you can see, there's a tremendous amount going on in the Troy School District. We've had an excellent start to the school year. As we think about our work this year. I can't help but think about how we started the year with staff and that is about belonging. In the Troy School District, we must be a place where everyone belongs, where every student feels needed and valued, seen and heard, accepted and embraced. And every student every day is met with high expectations across the school district. You can count on our team across the district working to ensure that this happens. That's what makes the Troy School District such a special place to be. That's what makes us a world class destination school district. And I want to thank each and every one of you for the work you do in supporting the Troy School District. This is Dr. Rich Machesky, thanks for joining inside TSD.