Dear AFSIVA Family,
I am very excited to welcome each of you to the start of school year 2020-2021. This is a time of change for our nation and our school community. I am hopeful about the task before us, and I am proud and ready to work with this school community to overcome and persevere through our current national and local crisis of Covid19, and Racial Injustices. While making sure our students and staff are safe, I will not lose sight of what needs to be done to improve education at Augusta Fells Savage Institute of Visual Arts.
I am truly humbled and honored to be given the opportunity to become Principal of Augusta Fells Savage Institute of Visual Arts. I am excited about joining all of you to make this school year one of the best years in AFSIVA history! Together we will improve our students’ success by building a more collaborative, thoughtful school community.
I am excited to announce a few changes in school leadership to help facilitate success this year.
I am starting the 20-21 school year as Principal of Augusta Fells Savage. I have been Principal at Joseph C. Briscoe Academy for 5 years. Prior to that, I was at Claremont for 4 years, after being an Assistant Principal at Heritage and Vivien T. Thomas. I have extensive experience working with special populations as a teacher, IEP chair and principal. I am excited to come home to the Westside and rejoin Sabers.
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I bring with me a new Assistant Principal, Abigail Pulliam, who comes to us from the Office of Student Wholeness and has worked extensively with Special Education populations and taught Science. Her experience will provide a unique perspective on educating the whole child.
Next, I have seen the work Sara Goodmuth has done supporting the staff through the transition to virtual learning in the spring and I have promoted her to an Educational Associate position focus on that work full-time. She will continue to support the staff through virtual and in-person instruction.
Finally, we will continue the data and instructional work by welcoming Cara Cassell to our team as an Educational Associate. Ms. Cassell joins us from the SERP institute. You may remember seeing her in the building last year, coaching around our STARI reading intervention program.
Ms. Pulliam, Ms. Cassell, Ms. Goodmuth, and I, along with Blueprint Literacy Coach Zack Jaffe will oversee a more robust plan for instructional support to improve student outcomes. Our goal is simple: we want to learn about leverage all of your skills in a collaborative way to maximize the potential of all of our students to meet success in school and life.
Along with these administration changes we are adding a few new staff members to help grow our vision. Ms. Jewel Carter is joining us from Office of Community Engagement and Mr. Andy Rader is joining our team as the Vision and Branding Ambassador and as an Advanced Placement Art Teacher as well as building a new Website and Social Media response.
I am focused on bringing partnerships and resources to AFSIVA to maximize students’ access to resources and opportunities for success. I, together with my staff, will drive our vision and mission to foster a 21st century learning environment that prizes students as learns leaders and artists. I am confident that the students of Augusta Fells Savage are ready and waiting to meet their futures through our front doors, Zoom meetings and Google classrooms.
If your student needs a resource to be successful, please call the schools main office and let us know. We will do what is in our power to help students start the year strong. More information about classroom codes for students, schedules and regular communications will be available on our website. Please check our new school website for more information.
This year will be full of new challenges for all of us. We are confident that if we work together, building relationships and support systems centered around student success, then we will fulfill our purpose of serving our students and community.
Educationally Yours,
Kamala Carnes
Principal
Augusta Fells Savage Institute of Visual Arts