Superintendent
Letter from the
Dr. Gary Peiffer –
Superintendent
Dear Parents, Students, Community Members, Alumni,
and Friends of the Greensburg Salem School District,
I
want to take this opportunity to thank everyone for the warm
welcome that I have received as the new superintendent of
Greensburg Salem. It is a privilege and an honor to serve these
communities. I have had the opportunity to meet many of you in
the first weeks of my tenure here, and I am impressed by the level
of commitment and dedication everyone has toward the District
and the communities we serve. The degree of enthusiasm and
Golden Lion pride demonstrated by everyone is contagious, and I
understand why so many current and former students are so proud
of their school. I want to grow that pride by not only honoring the
past, but by building for the future. As stated in the comprehensive
plan “Students must be prepared for their futures; not our past.” That
statement, along with “Effort Creates Ability,” serves as two main
pillars upon which our educational program is built upon here at
Greensburg Salem.
Moving forward into the new school year, keeping the focus on
the mission and vision of the District will inform our program and
budget planning. As Educators, we should always come back to
three essential questions regarding teaching and education:
1.
2.
3.
What do we want students to learn?
How will we know when they have learned it?
What will we do if they haven’t learned it?
I think we always have to reflect on these three questions as we
examine our practice. It is our obligation and moral purpose as
educators to ensure that every student learns at his or her highest
capacity, pushing that student out of a zone of comfort to one of
challenge. Effort creates ability; intelligence is dynamic- not static.
We have to get beyond the idea in public education that we do
things just because that is the way they have always been done.
We have to look beyond the traditional routine of the classroom to
see where the relevancy and real-life applications of the curriculum
lie. Working with community and regional partners, we can work
together to provide students with more opportunities to implement
knowledge and competencies to real world situations. I don’t
want to just produce graduates who have all the answers, I want
to produce graduates who also know what questions to ask. I
don’t want them to just replicate the information they learned
at Greensburg Salem, I want them to transfer and apply that
knowledge to solve new problems and to meet new challenges they
will face upon graduation.
We live in an era of great change and potential. Innovations
in such areas as computer science, robotics, artificial intelligence,
medicine, agriculture, and engineering will reshape the world we
live in. To compete and thrive, students will need to build on existing
competencies and skill sets while building new ones.
“To compete and thrive,
students will need
to build on existing
competencies and skill
sets while building
new ones.”
I want Greensburg Salem to be in the forefront of these changes,
working with students, parents, teachers, business leaders, and
community members on ways we can best prepare to meet these
changes going forward.
As the new superintendent at Greensburg Salem, I am eager
to work with administration, faculty, parents, students and other
community members to develop programs and create opportunities
for our students to meet these challenges head on. I am impressed
with the level of commitment and dedication shown by our school
board, administration, faculty and staff toward our students and
community, and have no doubt that Greensburg Salem has the
talent to move our program forward as we prepare our students
for the rigor and demands of the 21st Century. I look forward to
working with them and our regional partners to build for the future.
It truly is a great day to be a Golden Lion!
Sincerely,
Dr. Gary Peiffer
The Greensburg Salem School District pages are edited and compiled by the Community Relations Department. For more
information please contact Melissa Bowman, at 724.832.2907 or [email protected].
32
GREENSBURG SALEM