Dearest Parents of my dearest Students,
It is with a heavy heart and a firm sense of hope for the future that I bid University School of Nashville goodbye. Last week, I was interviewed for and accepted a position with Metro Nashville Public Schools to join a small team of educators who will craft the new Metro Nashville Virtual School into a model of its kind. Over the coming years, tens of thousands of children who for whatever reason cannot or will not attend a traditional school for a traditional learning experience will have an opportunity to become excited about learning, to learn, and to earn a high school diploma through our efforts.
Accepting the job, the "call" really, was not an easy decision. Most of all I will miss the daily interaction with your children. Over the last decade and a half, they have been at the center of my personal fulfillment, joyfully filling my days with challenges and successes. The announced plan for filling my position is to hire a capable substitute to work in the lab until a capable full-time replacement can be found.
Appropriately, this will be the final post at this blog. Whether my replacement will choose to communicate in this manner is anybody's guess. I plan to leave it up as a resource for her or him and an archive and resource for anyone in the world. That's the way the world works now, and I do hope it's helpful in some way.
If you wish to keep up with our progress in MNPS, I'll be posting, of course at http://scottmerrick.net and I will be setting up new channels of communication on the internet. I'm on Twitter and Facebook as well, and feel free to friend/follow me there.
I wish you and your children all the best, and I leave them in the care of some of the most dedicated and capable educators I know. I'll be around, of course, only not as much. If you are in the neighborhood of the Martin Professional Development Center on Fairfax Avenue, next to Dragon Park, please feel welcome to drop in to say hi.
I just got word from NAIS that I'll still be welcome in their "Teacher of the Future" cohort for the year 2010-2011, so I'll be contributing to the resources there over the coming year as well.
Take care, and as I always told your children, "be good and have fun."
Sincerely,
Scott Merrick
Virtual Learning Curriculum Specialist,
Metro Nashville Public Schools
scott@scottmerrick.net
Wednesday, August 04, 2010
Saturday, July 31, 2010
From my recent announcement on Facebook about my new position, with thanks
Scott Merrick That's done. Resigned from USN, accepted the new MNPS "Virtual Learning Curriculum Specialist" position, paperwork at Metro tomorrow. Change is in the air. I largely owe my PLN and all my colleagues for this exciting new opportunity to build a virtual school like no other. On we go.
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