Greetings TMSA Community,
Please allow me to express my sincere gratitude and appreciation for allowing me to serve as your principal at The Main Street Academy. Serving this community where I was raised and where my children are currently receiving their education is a dream come true.
I stand on the shoulders of many people who came before me and paved the way for our children to receive a quality education - the greatest humanitarian gift. As your new principal, my responsibility is to ensure this gift is delivered to our scholars with the highest quality of leadership and trust required to leverage their abilities far beyond their imagination.
The past one and a half years have been challenging to our scholars and to their families due to the unanticipated global COVID-19 pandemic. As a result, many of our students are experiencing learning loss greater than one grade level. We recognize this challenge and threat not just for our scholars but for our whole community. As we prepare for our return to TMSA for the 2021 - 2022 school year, please know that safety continues to be a top priority. We will return to school on Tuesday, August 3, 2021, based on the full face-to-face instructional model. Any change in this model will be determined by the community transmission rate (i.e., ≥100 cases/100,000 in the past 7 days), as well as the directive from Fulton County Schools and TMSA’s Governing Board. Our guidance model for full face-to-face instruction is aligned with the Georgia Department of Public Health (GADPH), a trusted organization that provides guidance to schools for public health-related matters, and Fulton County Schools, which is TMSA’s charter school grantor. We will continue to monitor community health reports and are prepared to adjust the learning model if public health reports indicate a need to adjust our instructional model. GADPH recommends students and adults wear protective masks and students should be arranged in seating three feet apart. As students navigate throughout campus, we will continue to maintain social distancing six feet apart and adhere to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommended mitigation strategies. Our school nurse will continue to support our students and staff by following TMSA triage protocols to guide our reactions and responses. The mitigation strategies and triage chart are both published on TMSA’s official website, tmsa.org.
Summer School was hosted onsite at TMSA June 7th – 18th specifically for students (grades 1 – 5) who experienced learning loss during the 2020 – 2021 academic school year due to pandemic-related concerns. During the summer session, I was thrilled to see students engage in Schoolwide Enrichment Model (SEM) activities, such as creative art, yoga and STEM activities. Several summer school activities were hands-on, minimizing laptop devices and virtual delivery. I am eager, like several TMSA families, to see students re-engaged in learning by focusing on reading, writing, and math skills development. As well as re-engaging in STEAM-related activities designed to enhance our student body’s ability to think critically and analytically.
TMSA will continue to be a family-focused and friendly environment that seeks support and input from our parents/guardians and the community at large. We welcome your volunteerism, participation in our Parent Teacher Organization (PTO) and support of our school’s fundraisers. Your help means a lot to our school and goes a very long way in supporting our scholars. I personally invite all TMSA dads and male role models to join my ‘All-Pro Dads’ meetings which will take place monthly this upcoming school year. Parents and guardians actively engaged with our school add extra value to our students’ learning experiences.
I look forward to engaging with you further at TMSA’s monthly Governing Board meetings, principal reports and/or virtually at one of our Title I or community meetings.
Continue to have a healthy summer and join me in TMSA’s newly launched 30/30 Wellness Challenge. Over the course of the next 30 days (July 1 – July 30), engage in an activity to promote your wellness for 30 minutes daily. Suggested activities include meditation, prayer, exercise, or any activity that gives you pleasure, as well as peace and happiness. I want everyone to reengage, rethink and reimage TMSA with a healthy, productive, and positive state of wellness.
I look forward to a successful beginning of what will be an exciting, yet challenging, new 2021 - 2022 school year!
Thank you,
Ishmael Abdul-Salaam
Principal
The Main Street Academy