August 31, 2022
Dear Fife School District Families and Staff:
Welcome Back! I am so excited to welcome all 3623 students and 534 staff members to the 2022-2023 school year! I will be honest, the last two starts to the previous two school years were not the “most exciting” for obvious reasons. And while we still have protocols and mitigations in place to help us continue the fight against Covid, we are back to more normalcy than we have known since March, 2020.
This summer, we were able to make great progress in our district with our capital projects, our new Strategic Direction, and focusing on our structures to assist all students in the learning process.
The 2018 voter-approved capital bond projects are wrapping up, and our new buildings have opened or are in the process of opening soon. Our first big project was Surprise Lake Middle School, which opened prior to the 2020-2021 school year. The new Fife Elementary School opened in September, 2021. The new FHS softball and baseball fields are now ready to use, with the batting cages and storage areas still being completed. Our Central Office was moved up the hill to Milton. We are now in the former Endeavour Intermediate School building. The remodel of the south end of the building was completed last week, and we have been moving our offices.
One project that was not completed on the original timeline is the STEAM Center at Fife High School. We hope to be granted occupancy by October. Additionally, over the course of the last four years, we have been able to remodel many front offices in our older schools, replace roofs, paint exteriors, upgrade fencing and other safety and security measures, and make several infrastructure improvements. We are so proud of the fact that we honored the gift that the community gave us back in February, 2018 with their “yes” votes. Our built environment has been upgraded on every campus, and our students' learning will most certainly benefit from it! You can see more information regarding all things construction related from the past four years on our district website by following this LINK.
This June, our school board officially adopted our new Strategic Direction. The work to create this Strategic Direction was completed over the course of the last school year. I absolutely love our new mission and vision, and although they are very similar to our past versions, the updated versions are very direct with our intention and our work - welcoming and serving all students. In addition to our 2022-2023 District Strategic Direction, each school is in the process of building their strategic direction for the year. Those documents will be published and shared later this fall. Here is a LINK to see the document in its entirety.
To close, I hope you are as excited for the start of the 2022-2023 school year as we are! There is nothing like the fresh start of a new school year, and this year that new-beginning feeling is so present.
Please be on the lookout for monthly communications from my office in addition to the weekly communications that come from your child’s school. Cheers to a great year!
Kevin Alfano, Superintendent