Dear CRHS Family,

Welcome to Rider Country!  Our staff can’t wait for you and your child to enter the doors of our learning community. Your high school student is embarking on an exciting educational journey, and we’re glad that you’ve chosen Caesar Rodney High School as the place where they will spend their capstone years.

Education is a partnership that involves you, the students, and our staff. We will provide outstanding teachers, a caring and supportive staff, and a safe and fun learning environment for your child. As our partners, we need you to instill in your children the value of education. Some of the best ways to do this are making sure your child is well-rested, arrives each day on time and ready to learn, abides by school and district policies, and talk with them about ideas and topics that they're studying in school.

In the book Outliers, author Malcolm Gladwell says that it takes roughly ten thousand hours of practice to achieve mastery in a field. How can we leverage this idea to achieve greatness in a child’s academic life?  The researchers found a direct statistical relationship between hours of practice and achievement – there were no shortcuts and there were no naturals.  This means that students spend 5,400 hours of their high school career in class at Caesar Rodney High School (7.5 hours per day x 180 days x 4 years).  The rest of the hours needed to reach Gladwell’s claim of 10,000 hours for mastery must be reached outside of the tradition school setting.  This is where it is important for your family to get involved.  Time invested with your child(ren) at home studying and making academic connections outside of the classroom pays off in huge dividends.  The more you participate, the more you and your child will benefit from school. I strongly encourage you to attend school functions and to volunteer, share your talents, visit classrooms, and chaperone field trips.  Please contact your child’s teacher or call the school for more information on ways that you can get involved.

CRHS is your school. We want you to feel that you are an integral part of the learning community. Everyone at our school including teachers, students, families, office staff, paraprofessionals, custodians, and food service workers is continually learning, growing, and working together to enrich the learning environment for our students.  As always, let’s work together to make it a great day to be a Rider!

Go Riders!

Dr. Sherry Kijowski