Dear Davis School District Employees, Students, and Families,
Welcome back!
There is something uniquely hopeful about the beginning of a school year. Bright-eyed students. Freshly prepared classrooms. Teachers standing at their doors. Principals greeting families. Friends reconnecting after a summer apart.
For generations, this season has been part of the rhythm of American life.
As our nation commemorates its 250th anniversary, I have found myself reflecting on the enduring institutions that have shaped who we are as a country. Public education is one of those defining institution.
The image of the one-room schoolhouse is deeply woven into the American story. In communities across the country, families came together to create a place where their children could learn and feel safe. Those schools were simple, but the idea behind them was ambitious: Communities would own the responsibility to educate and prepare its children.
That became one of America’s great commitments.
Over time, the one-room schoolhouse gave way to the modern, innovative schools we know today—schools with extraordinary, highly trained teachers, advanced technology, career pathways, music and the arts, athletics, world languages, and opportunities previous generations could scarcely have imagined.
And yet the central idea has not changed.
At our best, we are still the neighborhood school.
We are the elementary school down the street where a child learns to read, the junior high where students discover new interests and abilities, and the high school that becomes part of a family’s identity and a community’s traditions.
We are concerts and ball games, science fairs and graduations. We are places where friendships form, traditions are passed down, and children begin imagining the lives they might someday lead.
Our schools belong to their communities. I hope we never underestimate the value of an excellent neighborhood school as a cornerstone of a thriving community.
We know that educating children has never been the work of schools alone.
It begins with families, our essential partners and a child’s first teachers. It includes our city and county leaders, business and community partners, and our friends in the Utah Legislature and state government, all of whom help strengthen schools, communities, and opportunities for Utah’s children. It includes our Davis School District Board of Education and the thousands of Davis School District employees who care for students and make learning possible each day.
The hometown school remains one of the few places in American life where an entire community comes together around a shared promise to its children. We welcome them as they are. We help them discover what they can become. We challenge them, support them, and prepare them for lives of opportunity, contribution, and purpose.
From the one-room schoolhouses of early America to the innovative classrooms of today, much has changed.
The promise has not.
We come together to support children.
That is an American tradition worth celebrating, a community responsibility worth protecting, and work I am extraordinarily proud to share with all of you.
To our students, families, employees, and community partners: thank you for being part of it.
Welcome home. Welcome back. And welcome to another great year in Davis School District.
Dr. Dan Linford