A Sense of Urgency

Urgent.  What comes to mind?  Urgent Care?  Immediate attention?  Important?  Time sensitive?  What about education?  What about the sense of urgency to offer the best education to each student who walks through our doors every day? 

I am worried out of my mind for each of our students.  I want them to do well, be offered opportunity, and provide each of them with the hope of having a future beyond their wildest dreams.  And through that process, I want them to create childhood memories they will treasure for a lifetime.

I came back to my hometown to teach and serve my community because I wanted to offer other children what my teachers and school administrators offered me.  When I finished my studies in Tucson, I remember a friend who had been in education over 20 years tell me, “Oh, Vero, are you sure you want to go back?  You are going to get frustrated.  You are gonna want to change so much, but you won’t be able to.”  I think about those words every day.  But, I don’t know if I feel frustrated.  Rather, I feel the sense of urgency.  Our kids deserve the best, and if we don’t provide them with the very best, they won’t become their best.  And, it goes without saying we don’t have much.  We have to do what we can…scratch that….we have to do more than we ever thought possible with what we have.

I can call to mind the staff, teachers, administrators, and community members who acted upon their sense of urgency when I was a child.  They were innovators, change agents, providers of opportunity, risk takers, and people who made it happen.  No excuses.  By no means is it an easy task, but it is what each child deserves.  I feel so luck they thought I was worth it.

I am in it for the kids.  I am in it to make a difference.  I am in it because our kids are worth it. 

Recently, a dear educator friend shared this quote with me which is posted upon entering the Colorado Olympic Training Facility. It states, “Enter these doors with an unrelenting sense of urgency.”  Enter your school doors with a sense of urgency to make the impossible possible.