Principal’s Message
March 14, 2025 2025-11-21 7:17Principal’s Message
Happy Friday IA families,
I can’t believe we are already halfway through second semester. It’s been a fast and busy start!
As we start to think about the second half of the semester, I always like to remind parents about the upcoming testing season. We will have End-of-course assessments, End-of-pathway assessments for our juniors, and then AP testing for a vast majority of our students. While I am always happy to see our students challenging themselves and working to have a rigorous schedule, I am equally aware that our students face an unprecedented amount of stress and anxiety as this time approaches.
As academically-minded students, they often feel obligated to take on this whole load themselves. Because adults in their lives have worked to manage stress well and to shelter our kids from the stress we feel, young adults don’t see the stress we face, so they believe we either don’t have stress or are expected to handle it alone. I remember telling my son how nervous I was after interviewing for the principalship at IA. He was visibly shocked and said, “Wow, I didn’t think you got stressed about anything.” He never knew of all the late-night conversations I had with my wife, friends, and colleagues about my anxiety. Since then I’ve made it a point to talk to him about what stresses I have and how I try to cope.
I’d like to encourage you to take the initiative to start these conversations with our students, so they know it’s ok to be stressed and to seek guidance and support from their networks at home and at school to help cope. Starting these conversations and sharing stories about our own stress doesn’t weigh our kids down, it lifts them up by giving them permission to be stressed and to ask for help when they need it. They can also learn from our stressful experiences and how we got through them.
Please also remember that you and your students also have incredible support at school too. If you feel your student needs more resources, you can always reach out to our counselors who are incredible at helping our students get through this intense time of growth and development.
As always, thank you for your support.
Scott Kent
Principal Educator, FCS Innovation Academy
