Monthly Administrative Updates
October 2023 Administrative Update
by Mark Mambretti
Assistant Superintendent
Celebrating 140 Years of Achieving Excellence
Learning Excellence. Respectful Relationships. Effective Communication. Continuous Improvement. These are the four lasting values of the East Aurora School District.
Our values signify both "who we are" and "who we are trying to become." They are simultaneously the district’s foundation and the district’s North Star. And while using these four specific phrases to articulate our values is relatively new, the philosophical approach behind them is not!
The 2023-2024 school year celebrates the 140th anniversary of what was then known as the "East Aurora Union and High School." Recently, in looking back through some founding documentation, we discovered a newspaper notice announcing the creation of the new district. In it, Board President, the Hon. Seth Fenner, and Principal (a role now called Superintendent), Howard Lyon, made known:
“In the performance of their duties, the Board of Education have carefully studied and adopted every measure which, in their judgment, will provide a thorough, systematic and practical education. Special attention will be given in the lower grades to direct the mind of the pupil so that his ideas shall be correct from the beginning (italics original). In all grades, the instructors will endeavor to teach pupils to give elegant and forcible expression both in reading and composition. The Higher course will be comprehensive and the subjects arranged in the order of their dependence. Parents may be assured that the school will strive, always, to exert a healthy influence over their children.” (East Aurora Advertiser; 7 September 1883)
In the fourteen decades since that statement was published, much has changed! That change can be seen in our community, our nation, and our world. It is evident in our technology, our politics, our social norms, and our lived experiences.
Speaking solely of the school experience, from chalkboards to SmartBoards, from slate tablets to e-tablets, from penmanship to typing, and from three small schoolhouses (East End School, Went End School, and The Academy Building) to three sprawling state-of-the-art campuses, the modern student experience would appear otherworldly to our first pupils!
Yet these changes, while dramatic, can also be viewed as nothing more than cosmetic. This is because the district hasn’t really changed all that much. By consistently living our values, we still continue to "provide a thorough, systematic, and practical education". We continue to collaborate with the community to "direct the mind of the pupil so that [their] ideas shall be correct from the beginning." We continue to help each student comprehend the voice of others and find a way to ‘elegantly and forcibly express’ their own voice. And, most importantly, just as it was in the first school year and remains true now in our 141st (and beyond!) year, parents can still "be assured that the school will strive, always, to exert a healthy influence over their children."
In short, the guiding values we live by today are simply modern expressions of the district’s articulated founding purpose. This consistency has been achieved because, throughout its sevenscore existence, the school district has always remained rooted in and driven by the East Aurora community’s collective commitment to giving its children nothing but the very best.
If you were listening closely to the opening day bell on September 6, 2023, you’d be able to hear faint echoes ringing back each and every year to the opening day bell on Monday, September 10, 1883. What links these two sounds is the unbroken chain of a community, its school board, caring parents, and an untold number of talented educators linking together to help countless children achieve excellence. That is something worth celebrating! Here’s to 140 more!
#EA140: For Our Children: Yesterday, Today, Always!