As we are preparing for a new school year, I ask you to look at the following suggestions for making your first day at White Oak Middle School a great day!!!

1)   Come to school with a great attitude and a willing heart.  Middle School is vastly different from Intermediate School as High School is vastly different from Middle School.  Research states it takes 30 seconds to make a first impression but it takes approximately 20 additional encounters to undo or change a bad first impression.  (Capturing Kids’ Hearts)  There is always a transition/adjustment period when going from one campus to another and/or from one district to another.   Start this school year on the right track by being prepared, everyday.  

2)   Purpose in your heart to do the right thing.   An old saying, “What’s popular is not always what’s right and what’s right is not always what’s popular” still holds true today.

3)   Michelangelo once said, “The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it.”  Aim High!!!

4)   Practice the Golden Rule, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” everyday.

5)   Be a leader.   “Leaders aren’t born they are made. And they are made just like anything else, through hard work. And that’s the price we’ll have to pay to achieve that goal, or any goal. “  Vince Lombardi

6)   “If you think you can, you can. And if you think you can’t, you’re right. “ Henry Ford

7)   Strive to be successful in all you do.  “Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome.”    Booker T. Washington

8)    Do not be afraid to try.    “In order to succeed, your desire for success should be greater than your fear of failure.”  Bill Cosby

9)   Be a blessing to your fellow students.   “The most important single ingredient in the formula of success is knowing how to get along with people.”  Theodore Roosevelt

10)   “I look to a day when people will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.”  Martin Luther King, Jr.   Enough said!