Welcome back to another exciting year at James Park!

Last year, we started our journey in that we identified five school-wide values and beliefs - Safety, Kindness, Respect, Trust and Learning.  

If you are new to our school community, you will not be aware of the many changes that have occurred at the school over the last one and a half years and the process we have gone through to arrive at our core values and beliefs stated above.  This year our emphasis remains on numeracy and literacy skills, but we will also make a big effort to teach our students how these core values and beliefs look, sound and feel like on a daily basis.  At James Park, we not only want our students and parents to know that the foundation of our daily interactions are based on these five pillars, but we also - and perhaps more importantly - want our students to live them on a daily basis..   Our vision for this community is that our students and parents feel that this space we call James Park Elementary is one in which they feel safe and act safely, in which they experience kindness and show kindness to others, in which they feel respect and show respect to everyone else, in which the feel they can trust peers and staff and experience trusting relationships, and in which they are active participants in the learning process, doing their personal best on a daily basis.  Yes, mistakes can and will happen, but the expectation at James Park is that we learn from our mistakes and become better citizens in the process.

We have work to do.  We need you to partner with us in that we need you to talk to your children on a daily basis about our five values and beliefs.  I encourage you to speak to your children regularly about how safety  and kindenss look like at home and at school, how  we feel and make others feel when we treat them kindly, etc. 

This year, we will continue with teaching our students self-regulation skills and will continue with our Zones of Regulation.  I encourage you to be familiar with this program by speaking to your child, your child's teacher about the concept and/or by visiting the following website:  http://www.zonesofregulation.com/index.html

Teaching students self-regulation strategies such as the Zones is a key to their abilities to resolve conflict situations peacefully.  Students need to understand that they always have better options than physical ones available to resolve conflict.  In the words of Barbara Coloroso, 'There is no problem so great it cannot be solved."

Let's make it happen - this year and beyond!

Principal