Hello to All in the Northwest Community!

We wanted to take a moment to share some of the great things happening around Northwest:

The month of March celebrates Developmental Disabilities Awareness Month (DDAM).  

Northwest is excited to partner with Summit County Developmental Disabilities Board (Board of DD) and Stark County Board of DD to kick- off the month of March by celebrating Inclusion Day on March 2. The color orange is the symbolic color for DDAM. Let’s paint the district and community ORANGE to show our support for inclusion!  

I have received a question on our celebration and the use of the word inclusion. I understand that it can be a loaded word in society these days. We want to be clear, by using that term. we are asking our students to include all our students with special needs all of the time. We have really worked on this the last few years. We are doing this to make all of our students feel special at school every single day. 
 
In addition to wearing orange, the Inclusion Day Committee is planning activities for students to actively engage in meaningful discussions and experiences centered on inclusion and support individuals with disabilities. 
 
We invite all of you out there to wear orange on March 2 to help us celebrate!
 
Next, we had our groundbreaking ceremony to begin construction on our arts addition, weight room, and wrestling room. Any day now, you will be able to see the construction happening at a rapid pace. This project will be done this time next year! 

We have also been working on a new Vision Statement and Mission Statement for Northwest Schools. Our process included faculty & staff and parents. We will be announcing both statements at our February School Board Meeting.  

This will lead to developing our district-wide Strategic Plans for the next three school years. We will begin the process of collecting data from a number of sources:
 
February 23 Work session with our school board to collect data
 
March 2 & 4 Data collected from our administrative team
 
March 11 Data will be collected from our faculty & staff 
 
April 7 & 9 Data will be collected from parent meetings and community leaders
 
We will also have a survey for all parents available through the month of March
 
Our facilitator will work with all of the groups assembled to discuss possible goals for Northwest Local Schools. Once all of these meetings are finished, we will review all of the data to create our Strategic Plans beginning next fall. 

We look forward to working with all of you to determine our goals to continue to take the steps to maintain Northwest’s greatness! We will have more information soon!
 
My last announcement is maybe the most important:  The Phantom of the Opera opens this weekend! If you have the opportunity, please join us at Puff Hall to see what I am sure will be an amazing show! Tickets are $15 and can be purchased online through the Hometown Ticketing site!

Show dates are 7:00 February 20, 7:00 February 21, and 3:00 February 22.

Break a leg to the cast and to director Mr. Busby!  We hope to see all of you there!

Finally, as I have mentioned before, if you have any questions on anything happening in our school buildings, talk to our teachers. You can contact our principals. Or you can call me anytime at 330-573-9024! 
 
Thank you for your continued support of Northwest.
 
Sincerely,
 
Shawn Braman