Welcome Hobbs Eagles to the new school year! It has been a fun start to what is a promising school year of growth for our students, staff and community as a whole. I would like to focus on a few topics as we kick off the monthly columns related to Hobbs Schools. Those topics would be school safety and Hobbs Municipal Schools Values.
As we march forward into the opportunities of this school year, school safety remains top of mind for Hobbs Municipal Schools and our community. Our staff and students will routinely engage in scenario-based drills and exercises to better prepare for any number of dangerous situations. Additionally, we strive to prevent dangerous or threatening events from occurring and minimizing the impact on students and staff when they are imminent. Our Standard Response Protocol is the tool we use to respond and communicate in when faced with a threat. Those measures include Evacuation, Shelter, Secure, Lockdown and Hold, in the event a dangerous situation presents itself. One measure we consistently engage in is all visitors are to report to the main office as all other exterior doors remain locked at all times. Our classroom doors remain locked as well to prevent a staff member from having to lock it during a stressful situation. In addition, we will be installing security film throughout the district on our windows. As always, we communicate as quickly as possible the known information to parents and staff to keep the lines of communication open. Please know that during an incident, we ask for your cooperation to pay attention to the training materials sent home and assist in your role as a parent for the safety of all occupants of a building.
The recent months, Hobbs Municipal Schools engaged with multiple members of our community to better define what we value. As a result, there were 5 Key Values that continued to be discussed and shared. Those 5 Values are Student-Centered, Service, Innovation, Capacity Building and Sustainable High Performance. While we engage in decision making that looks at these values, we also will look to emphasize and recognize those occurrences when students, staff and community display the behaviors that exemplify those values as well. In addition, we will focus on a particular value each month and begin to highlight those standards of practice through our everyday communication and behaviors. As such, August was most certainly Student-Centered. All of HMS was focused on the return of students to campuses across the district and making the start of school as comfortable as possible. I trust you and many of us were able to see behaviors that exemplified this value by asking, “Is this in the best interest of the student?” We also are engaged in defining students’ outcomes beyond academics. What are those successes that help to mold and shape our students that are not communicated on a report card or a transcript?
For September, our Value focus will be on Service. We will be looking for and identifying those time when we can meet the need. The standards of practice tied to service are serving others with intentionality. Listen, take initiative and support each other to grow together and be willing to go above any beyond your responsibilities. That may be as simple as picking up a piece of trash on campus that isn’t yours or it may be helping another student, staff member, parent or community member better understand a concept or idea. Join us in recognizing and praise those efforts made by so many in our community to make Hobbs and Hobbs Municipal Schools a great place for kids.
Gene Strickland
Superintendent
Hobbs Municipal Schools