[All staff meeting comments May 3, 2010] The purpose of today’s meeting is to share celebration points that affirm the outstanding instructional practice that leads to excellent student achievement. We are not going to take a lot of time to do this today, because the point is not to dwell on all the specifics so much as to affirm and recognize contributions to the team effort, upholding what we value. We are going to take a few minutes to recognize one another for the great things that continue to happen here at Norris. · First of all, everyone is busy, but we must never be too busy to notice outstanding performance. If we fail to recognize excellence, how will we distinguish it from anything else? How will we know to repeat it? We tarnish excellence when we do not overtly uphold it and point it out, so that we can emulate it. It just becomes another assumed thing. That is a dangerous gamble to take with excellence; excellence is something that needs to be brought out in the light of d