Principal's Message

Dear Smoky Hill Community,

Welcome to the 2024-2025 school year! I hope you all were able to relax, reflect, and recharge while away on summer break. I could finally take a true vacation with my wife and three kids and took full advantage of the time away from Smoky.

Now, it’s time to get back to work, and I am eagerly awaiting the return of our students.    

Our mission is to provide ALL students with an equitable and inclusive learning environment that cultivates the necessary knowledge, skills, habits of mind, and societal competence to thrive and contribute to a dynamic 21st-century world. Our vision is to ensure that each member of our community is equipped intellectually, socially, and emotionally to pursue their pathway of purpose. We believe that all students can be successful and have identified the Core Values that will guide our work in actualizing this belief: Accountability, Equity, Growth Mindset, High Expectations, Relationships, and Respect. We will continue to work collaboratively to meet the needs of ALL learners—from those with disabilities to those who have been marginalized, to those who are multilingual, to those who benefit from more independence, and all in between. Addressing and overcoming long-standing inequities and disparities so that we may promote and ensure healthy civic participation for ALL our students remains our collective responsibility. These challenges require us to consider our role in ensuring the success of our students and being active, unrelenting participants in this effort.

We will focus on the following initiatives during the 2024-2025 school year:

• Provide every student with authentic and rigorous learning experiences through a structured, culturally responsive, and evidence-based approach to literacy instruction.
• Increase student average daily attendance and decrease chronic absenteeism.
• Decrease racial disproportionality and predictability in student discipline through Restorative Practices, community building, and targeted interventions.
• Remove barriers to learning by limiting student cell phone use during scheduled class time.
• Enhance the safety and support of students and staff through heightened security protocols and increased healthcare access. 
• Defining and establishing “The Buffalo Way” for staff, students, and community members.

We will continue to actualize our urgent collective desire to achieve sustained excellence. Excellence in teaching and learning. Excellence in athletics and the arts. Excellence in equity. Excellence in inclusion. Excellence in school-wide culture. Excellence in post-secondary preparedness.      

I am thrilled to embark on this exciting journey with you.

Thank you in advance for your continued support and trust.  

HERD Forward

Sincerely,

Dr. Andre Bala

Principal

Smoky Hill High School