This week marked the beginning of our senior celebrations for the Class of 2020. I have seen so many incredible moments as our faculty and staff came together to plan this unique opportunity to celebrate our graduates despite the COVID-19 pandemic. Our students, especially our seniors, have already dealt with

  I have to be honest. I didn’t see this coming. I never could have imagined that I would be writing about the emergency closure of all the schools in our district and state. But here we are. Most schools across the entire country and many more all over the

This week, I’m happy to hand over my blog to several extremely talented student journalists. On January 29, 2020, as part of the inaugural season of The Chesapeake Forum, student media representatives from each of our high schools had the unique opportunity to interview award-winning journalist and host of CBS

Happy New Year! I hope that the holiday break provided all of our students and staff with a much-needed opportunity to rest and recharge. I know that I enjoyed my time spent with family and friends and hope you did the same. And although I typically don’t tend to make

On Tuesday, November 5, 2019, you could feel the excitement fill the Indian River High School auditorium. Over 1,200 Chesapeake educators were there to learn, and to laugh as part of the first engagement in the new Chesapeake Speaker Series. Ron Clark, educator, author, and former Survivor contestant, was there

    There are lots of good things about family reunions: seeing loved ones you haven’t seen in a while, good food, and of course the chance to catch up and tell stories. These same good things were what made this year’s State of the School System breakfast feel like

How do you end up in the Guinness Book of World Records…without even realizing it?  Recently, Chesapeake students, teachers, and administrators did just that by joining students from Virginia Beach to break the record for the largest field trip!  About 1,500 students from Title I schools in Chesapeake attended the

Our first week of school is behind us and, Hurricane Dorian aside, it was a smooth opening this year.  It is truly inspiring to see the eagerness on the faces of elementary students, the curiosity on the faces of middle school students, and the focus on the faces of our

Happy summer!  I hope you’re using this time to relax and refresh and to enrich the lives of the young people around you.  If you have been keeping up with my blog, you’ll know that I issued a Shadow a Student Challenge to administrators back in the spring.  It was

Wow! That’s really the best way to describe how I felt attending my first commencement ceremonies for all seven of our high schools last week. There is nothing that makes me prouder to be a superintendent than to see our students walk across the stage to receive their high school