While I will remain committed to advocating for social-emotional, and physical health, our district’s continued work towards achieving true racial equity, as well as implementing the strategic plan, two issues will dominate the 2021-22 school year. The first, is ensuring that Dr. Patel enjoys a smooth and successful transition into her role as Superintendent. In the best of times, this task would be a daunting one, given the enormity of the shoes that she must fill. These aren’t normal times, however. Accordingly, the BOE must go above and beyond in making sure that Dr. Patel receives all of the support that she needs to succeed. The second priority is our continued vigilance in keeping our schools safe, healthy places to learn. This includes, but is not limited to, on-going risk mitigation practices and distance learning. One piece of this work will be implementing lessons learned from self-assessments and evaluations during the 2020-2021 school year. An equally important part of making our schools safe, healthy learning environments is recognizing that returning from a year of stressors and unknowns never before experienced by our students, requires that we pay particular attention to social-emotional health and that we provide our students with the resources and support necessary to adjust, once again, to whatever form school takes this fall.