Halethorpe Elementary School is a community of teachers, students, administrators, families, and support staff dedicated to providing a caring, safe, nurturing, and intellectually stimulating environment, where students are challenged to maximize their unique potential to become life-long learners and responsible citizens.

BELIEF STATEMENTS:

We believe all students will learn and achieve
We believe a quality education requires:

• An effective teacher in every classroom
• An effective principal in every school
• A standardized, challenging curriculum
• A results-oriented, data-driven focus which is based on continuous growth
• Shared accountability among teachers, principals, and central office personnel

We believe that improved student achievement requires families and communities to be partners in the educational process.
We believe every employee has the responsibility to model ethical behavior, to exhibit a strong work ethic, and to achieve high
performance.
We believe in respecting the dignity and worth of every individual.

GOALS:

• To improve achievement for all students
• To maintain a safe and orderly learning environment in every school
• To use resources effectively and efficiently

VISION:

We will have graduates who have the knowledge and skills to participate meaningfully in a multicultural, technological, and change-oriented society.

Excerpts from Baltimore County Public Schools Blueprints for Progress

 

Excerpt from a speech by the Rev. Dr. Patrick T. O’Neill, First Parish Unitarian Universalist Church, Farmington, MA

And how are the Children?

Among the most accomplished and fabled tribes of Africa, no tribe was considered to have warriors more fearsome or more intelligent than the mighty Masai.

It is surprising then to learn the traditional greeting that passed between Masai warriors, “Kasserian ingera,” one would always say to another….means “ And how are the children?”

It is still the traditional greeting among the Masai, acknowledging the high value that the Masai always place on the children’s well being.

Even warriors with no children of their own would always give the traditional answer:  “All the children are well.”

“Meaning, of course, that peace and safety prevail, that the priorities of protecting the young, the powerless are in place, that Masai society has not forgotten its reason for being, its proper functions and responsibilities.

“All the children are well, “means that life is good. It means that the daily struggles of existence, even among a poor people; do not preclude proper caring for its young.

I wonder how it might affect our consciousness of our own children’s welfare in our culture if we took to greeting each other with this daily question: “And how are the children?”

I wonder if we heard that question and passed it along among one another a dozen times a day, if it would begin to make a difference in the reality of how children are thought of or cared for in this country.

I wonder if every adult among us, parent and non-parent alike, felt an equal weight for the daily care and protection of all the children in our country, in our community, in our schools…..

I wonder if we could truly say without any hesitation, “The children are well, ah yes, all the children are well.”

What would it be like….if the President began every press conference, every public appearance, by answering the question?

“And how are the children, Mr. President?

If every governor of every state had to answer the same question at every press conference, “And how are the children, Governor?

Are they all well?

Wouldn’t it be interesting to hear their answers?

If you as principals, were greeted with, “Kasserian ingera? And how are the children?”

Would you be able to answer that in your school all the children are well.

Well, a bi-partisan law has responded to the question, “And how are the children?”  That law is the NCLB Act because in our educational world all the children are not well.