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  Dr. Kara Stern, Smore Resident Educator

  A veteran educator, I've gone from teacher, to principal, to Ph.D., to ED @ www.mathforamerica.org, to head of school, and now Resident Educator at Smore. I geek out on pedagogy and my Libby app :)

  More posts by Dr. Kara Stern, Smore Resident Educator.

Dr. Kara Stern, Smore Resident Educator

Welcoming faculty back from summer requires a certain sleight of hand: you have to acknowledge that vacation is ending while inspiring your team with the hope and promise of the new school year. Principals as motivational speakers!

We’ve got you. Our Welcome Back to School Letter template is designed to save you time. First, find a placeholder for your opening message, along with an inspirational photo. Next, a gallery to introduce new faculty and staff. Simply switch out the photos and add a quick bio.

We put a big pic of the week’s schedule (because everyone needs to know EXACTLY how much time they’ll have to set up their classrooms, amirite?!), followed by a gallery of facilities upgrades.

Your school website has a lot of important information, but folks are coming back from vacation so who’s got time to look? We put a button to remind everyone where exactly they can get the list of dates of every school holiday from now till June 2022.

Finally, we’ve got resources. Two different kinds of Back-to-School checklists for your faculty, and some inspiring TEDtalks. For principals, we’ve got a great blog post that offers a framework for thinking about leadership in the era of Covid. And, if you’re contemplating how exactly to kick off the year, we’ve included a funny song written by a teacher (get everyone to sing along; it’s a guaranteed way to start with positivity.)

In the contacts section, we’ve put a school mission statement — ‘cause mission is always good to keep front and center — and a placeholder photo of your school.

Coming back is never easy, but using this template definitely is. Wishing you a healthy, calm, productive school year.