A letter of thanks for a great first day

Below is a letter that Dr. Grier sent out to community leaders via email on Aug. 27.

Dear HISD Community:

Thanks for everything you have done to help us get the new school year started off right!

It’s because of your support and our staff’s strong effort that we have been getting rave reviews. This is not by accident. All the time we put in this summer to make sure that every classroom was prepared to offer rigorous teaching and a safe, comfortable environment has paid off.

We opened the school year with 99.7 percent of our classrooms staffed, thanks to the efforts of our principals and our Human Resources Department. Focused on filling vacancies with quality teaching candidates and providing great professional development opportunities to both new and returning teachers over the summer, HISD started this school year off on a very strong note.

We also welcomed seven North Forest community schools that have been completely transformed in less than two months’ time. A special thanks to our Construction and Facilities Services Department for their hard work. They have created warm, welcoming school environments for the student in the North Forest community that we can all be proud of.

We are also proud of our two new magnet schools that are unlike any others in the nation. These two schools – the Energy Institute High School and the Baylor College of Medicine Academy at Ryan – are at full capacity in their inaugural years. We also opened two new neighborhood elementary schools – Atherton and Dogan – without a hitch, and the communities they serve could not be more pleased with their modern new 21st Century campuses.

Again, Monday was a banner day for HISD—and lots of people noticed. But don’t just take my word for it. Click here to read and hear some of the many positive things people are saying about us. This praise rightly belongs to our wonderful staff, so I wanted to take a moment to brag about them.

We still have much work ahead of us, but thanks to the entire community, every child in HISD felt valued and important on the first day of school, and that’s what it takes to become great all over.

Thank you.