Many of you already know this, but I have a fascination with airplanes. I’ve always loved them since the very first time I had the opportunity to fly. It wasn’t in a large commercial plane or anything like that. It was a single-engine Cessna owned by a friend of my dad’s. I often had the opportunity to go up with him, and he would allow me to take over the controls. It was incredible because I was actually flying this plane. I told my dad that I wanted to learn how to fly airplanes, and we decided that I would take flying lessons to become a licensed pilot. Unfortunately, my dad lost his job. He had taken a break from education and was working as a security guard leader at a large power plant. After he was laid off, he was unable to pay for the expensive flying lessons, so I never got to learn to fly.

Even though I never learned to fly, I still love flying. In a previous blog, I talked about flying to New Zealand, which was a 17-hour flight. I was super excited. Recently, I traveled and wore my Hempstead shirt that simply says “HigherHeights.” A gentleman approached me and asked, “What is HigherHeights?” My response was pretty basic: “It’s our slogan in Hempstead ISD, and we are taking our district to HigherHeights, just like the airplanes flying over our heads. I told our staff early in the year that we are at the place of flight where our plane is climbing. During this time, there is often a lot of turbulence and things can go wrong. Basically, it’s a risk. But to reach altitude, you have to climb. As we head to our destination of transformation for Hempstead ISD, we must climb to the desired altitude. I am confident that working together, we will get where we need to be. Our vision in Hempstead ISD is ‘Hempstead ISD will cultivate confident learners and leaders who excel in all endeavors.’ As we continue to climb and reach our altitude, we will graduate those confident learners and leaders