The Lake Highlands High School volleyball team won the prestigious Duncanville Tournament of Champions last weekend, becoming just the second team from the DFW area to win since the tournament began 32 years ago. They finished the tournament with wins over perennial Texas powers Westlake and Amarillo, and their effort has been rewarded with the top current spot in the Texas Girls Coaches Association rankings. Tori Mellinger was named tournament MVP and Angie Morgan and Kenzie Thompson were named to the all-tournament team. They are coached by Cory Williams.

Congratulations on a great start to the year!

The RISD Board of Trustees and Superintendent's Advisory Council spent a considerable amount of time reviewing RISD's vision statement, district beliefs and goals. It was not a full scale rewrite, but an update to BETTER reflect who we are today. These statements provide the foundation for all the plans and decisions made at a district level.

What’s different? Not much really, but you will notice the addition of words such as “inclusive,” “safe,” and “trust.” We also changed from “recognizing” to “retaining” our staff, as it is important to us that we foster an environment where our district employees feel appreciated and know we want them to stay. Additionally, we added a belief statement on educators, which was missing before. We know that nothing else matters without dedicated and skilled educators, so it was imperative to us in our discussion that this was reflected in our beliefs.

In our review of the vision, beliefs and goals, we also talked about what we really want for every child. And putting into words the ultimate task for RISD, we created a tag line we hope you will embrace. In RISD, we unlock potential, provide opportunities and enable dreams…for every student.

To us, it describes our desire to be less about test results and more about making sure each child performs to his or her highest potential. And while state ratings are important, if we focus on unlocking potential, providing opportunities and enabling dreams for all students, the accolades and recognitions will take care of themselves.

Because our vision, mission and goals for RISD are the underlying motivation for all that we do, we felt it was important to unveil them to you as soon as possible.