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Hello all,

Mark and I wrapped up another school year today. As I send staff and students on their way for the summer I am reminded just how fortunate I am to serve in this capacity. Those of us in education know rewards beyond any measure that can be quantified by test scores or bank accounts. I am so very glad you are out in the world making the impact you do and collecting those rewards as well. Get recharged this summer and come back ready to do it all over again. I will. And I know it is worth it.

I also wanted to give you a heads up regarding some Mission Monday changes Mark and I are working on.

We won't be as dormant these summer months as we have been in the past. We will keep the tweets going and upload some YouTube videos as well. Mark and I will be presenting for Advantage Discipline in Grand Rapids and Chicago this summer (as always check MissionMonday.com for details).

Next year we will be adding a fourth Mission component- Volunteer Missions. These will be an opportunity for volunteers to come into your school for 10ish minutes at a time on a consistent basis and have a positive impact on the climate of your school and community. You will of course be receiving the Volunteer Missions along with the Student, Staff, and Parent Missions. I will be piloting the volunteer program at the school I serve as well. I tested it a couple of time this year and it was pretty sweet.

Mark and I will be working on a second much more in depth Mission Monday book which we hope to have published and available by the summer of 2013. Additionally we will be developing a full day presentation focused on implementation of Mission Monday as a school and community intervention. And as always we would love to share what we have and what we will have with you. Let us know and if the schedule works we can work on setting up a presentation and working out the details.

If you have found some success with Mission Monday I would love to hear about it. Please feel free to email me. And let your peers know about it. Refer them to the email, Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube. This is something I truly believe can make a world altering difference. But it happens one person at a time. And I would really dig it if each of you were one of those people.

I leave you with a letter I received from one of our parents today. It was one of those little validations that you get that makes it worth all the effort and investment. I hope you got a few notes like this as well.

"Dear Mr. Stecher,

It has been a great year having you as principal of Emerson! It's so fun to see your connection with the teachers and kids. Thank you for all you poured into making Emerson a better place. The "Fly Missions" (explanation from me, Sam- At my school we don't call it Mission Monday. We call them Fly Missions since we are the Eagles.) have been great inspiration for us as parents to impart character and "thinking of others" into our children. We think you are great! May God bless the impact you are having."

Be well,

Sam