Dear Friends and Family:

Washington Post Columnist George Will recently wrote an article on his son’s fortieth birthday. Jon Will was born with Down’s syndrome during a time when his life expectancy was 20 years. The entire article was inspiring, but one statement really captured my attention. He described Jon as having an “underdeveloped entitlement mentality.”

A sense of entitlement is perhaps the heaviest burden a young person can carry into adulthood. One of our most important jobs as teachers and parents just might be to train children so that their sense of entitlement is “underdeveloped.”

LeRoy Beam, K4-8 Principal

“The difference between perseverance and obstinacy is that one comes from a strong will, and the other from a strong won’t.” – Henry Ward Beecher