August 20, 2026 - Secondary School Principal Blog

I hope this message finds you well. We have had a wonderful second week of school at ISY, and there is a lot to look forward to over the coming weeks. It has been a true pleasure connecting with parents and students, visiting classrooms, and getting to know the ISY community.

This past Tuesday, we held a student leadership workshop after school. We invited any student interested in a leadership role to join us so we could collectively define what leadership and service learning mean at ISY. We had a diverse group of middle and high school students who engaged in thoughtful discussions about what makes a great leader.
When we compiled their ideas regarding the traits and competencies of a good leader, three key themes emerged consistently:

🧠 Competence: 
Students noted that competence is built through practice, effort, and continuous learning. It requires being humble enough to recognize areas for growth and ambitious enough to keep striving. This combination of "humbition"—low ego paired with high drive—is essential for strong leadership.

💛 Kindness and Warmth: 
Our students emphasized that leaders must care about the entire group rather than just themselves. As the saying goes, people do not care how much you know until they know how much you care.

🎯 Dedication: 
A strong leader invests time and energy toward the collective good. Dedication grows through intentionality, which means understanding why we do what we do and what we hope to accomplish.

Developing a daily habit of setting intentions can help foster this dedication. I encourage you to have your students sit and ask themselves: "Why am I going to school today? What do I want to accomplish? Who do I want to be?" Have them write out their answers and share them with you. It is likely to lead to a great conversation.

Learning from our students was an inspiring experience. If we cultivate competence, kindness, and dedication across our entire community, there is no limit to what we can accomplish together. 

Be Good,

Mr Ronnie Caldwell

Secondary School Principal

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