2024-25: We Are Brave Nation
This school year, our theme is "WE ARE BRAVE NATION!"
Community ISD is a quickly growing and changing district. Just since Dr. Tonya Knowlton became the superintendent in August 2021, the school district has doubled in size. Enrollment has skyrocketed from 2,880 students in 2021-22 to a projected 5,087 on the first day of school for 2024-25, and our staff has grown from 323 employees to 730 today! This change is exciting, and it is challenging.
With these changes in size and population, Community ISD is re-committing to its core identity this school year. With over 400 new employees and over 2,200 new students that have come into the District, it is easy for our Brave Nation character to be minimized or lost in the transition.
Thankfully, our core identity is strong, and there remains many guidelines and explanations that were established years ago. Our responsibility now is to re-emphasize, re-visit, and rejuvenate them!
What does "We Are Brave Nation" look like? We want our students, staff, parents/guardians, and community members to be #TrueToTheTribe! We want the values that are important for our Braves - the Traits of a Brave - to be the forefront of our daily mission, and the driving force of the decisions we make each day. We want every student and staff member to be proud that they are a part of Brave Nation! We want every student to understand who LaCoNe Jo is, and to believe in the Blue and Gold!
Please join us this year in celebrating our core identity, and embody the Traits of a Brave. We want everyone to bleed blue and gold, be #TrueToTheTribe, and be generous, passionate, humble, and wise in all they do.
Here are some specific steps we're taking this year to return to our Brave Nation identity:
- Blue and Gold Thursdays: Each week our Community ISD Communications team will visit at least one campus and search for students and staff that are decked out in Braves gear. These students and staff will be celebrated on our district website and social media, and they will sometimes receive a special gift!
- Our elementary and secondary campuses will reinforce a new Trait each week, starting with Generous. Please join us at home and encourage your students to put a special emphasis on that week's Trait.
- Weekly shoutouts by Dr. Knowlton on the "Community Live" Facebook stream recognizing specific students and staff that put the Traits of a Brave on display. Connect with us and send us your nominees through our Brag on a Brave system!
- New postings of the Traits of a Brave in all campuses. If you would like a copy of the Traits of a Brave poster to print out at home, they can be downloaded by clicking here.
- All students and staff will be taught the school song and fight song, and they could be randomly asked to perform the songs from memory. If you would like to learn the words to these songs, click here.
- Use the #TrueToTheTribe hashtag and tag us on social media when you want to show YOUR commitment to Brave Nation! Some of these posts will be shared on CISD social media and our website, and could even be featured in Dr. Knowlton's weekly podcast!