One of the most rewarding aspects of serving at Westlake High School is being able to attend all the events, games, concerts, plays, and banquets that we offer as a campus. Our calendar of events is packed with opportunities for our students, directors, and coaches to showcase the work and the final product of their labor. Our calendar, compared to most 6A high schools, is very full! This allows the administrative team to observe so many of our students and staff excelling in their chosen areas of interest.
As a former coach on our campus, you can have a very small view of the large amount of activities that are happening. You only experience your games and meets while not having the larger view of this wonderful campus. As a parent, one begins to have a similar view as they may only attend events that their children are performing or playing in - this is quite normal and is simply human nature. I had a few events that helped to change my perspective as a teacher/coach here. Once, I had an offensive lineman inform me that he would be missing three days of practice to attend Live Oak as a teen teacher. He told me that he understood that he may not get to start that week on Friday night, but said that the Live Oak program for our 5th graders was very meaningful to him. As I became an administrator and watched our teen teachers who were involved with Live Oak, Pedernales and Harambe, I realized that many of our programs impact our students greatly. After coaching football for many years on Friday nights, I had the opportunity to watch Kerry Taylor and his staff with our band kids on Friday nights and in competition. I immediately had a new perspective on how hard our band students work, and the joy this activity brings to our students. Kerry and I quickly became good friends which would have never happened unless I had stepped outside of my normal circle. So the moral of the story is that maybe we all should attend activities that our kids are not directly involved with. The challenge is for our parents and staff to attend at least one activity/event this spring to gain a new perspective. There is a great opportunity this Friday evening as our varsity girls and boys soccer teams have their opening round playoff games here in a double-header. Baseball will be playing Lake Travis here at home as well. Please check our events schedule on our home page for all of the events. One positive aspect of taking this challenge may be getting to see parents that you may not have seen in a while due to different schedules. It’s a nice chance to get caught up with old friends while they are watching their kids. As I attend so many events, a frequent conversation with parents is that this is the first time they attended this event and how overwhelming of a positive experience it was. Take some extra time to support all of our students and staff - it will be a worthwhile experience. It’s always a great day to be a Chaparral!
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Steve Ramsey: WHS Principal BlogPrincipal's Weekly Reflections Archives
May 2019
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