A Message from Principal Brownson, November 2024

Liberty Families and Community,

The past week has been challenging to say the least, and while many of us have been able to return to normalcy, I want to acknowledge that many in our community have been deeply impacted by the recent storm and may continue to be for quite some time. With that in mind as well as with the upcoming holiday break, I wanted to share my gratitude to all of you in this community and to recognize all of the many incredible things happening at Liberty.

Our students never cease to amaze me with the scope of their academic, athletic, and artistic talents. Just this fall we had 18 National Merit commended scholars and 6 National Merit Semi Finalists. These awards are based on student achievement on the PSAT test given in October. In the world of athletics, both Girls’ Soccer as well as Volleyball made it to their respective state tournaments with the Volleyball Team earning a 5^th place in state. This is addition to some outstanding individual performances in both Girl’s Swim, Cross Country, and Boys Golf. The Patriot Players, our theater arts program, just got done performing a very fun and imaginative version of Alice in Wonderland, and both Band and Choir programs have concerts scheduled in the coming weeks. Finally, our NJROTC program continues to be named a Distinguished Unit each year, a designation given to only the top 30% of units in the nation.

In the classroom, our teachers have been enthusiastically working to expand their craft around principles of Universal Design for Learning (UDL), which is a way of designing instruction that flexible and able to meet the diverse range and needs of individual learners. UDL is very student centered and is comprised of strategies that provide options for multiple means of engagement, representation, and action/expression. Our teachers have set individual goals for themselves, created a building UDL strategy “shopping cart,” and about ten or so have chosen to participate in their own book study on the topic. Early returns on our new cell phone policy have been very positive. We have seen a dramatic decline in the amount of disruptions caused by cell phones in classrooms and have even noticed a significant reduction in the number of failed classes at the midpoint of this semester compared to this same time last year.

While those achievements are worth celebrating, the thing that I am most grateful for is to be a part of a school that has so many students who regularly work to pursue excellence, act with integrity, and take care of each other. I see our students exhibiting these qualities each and every day, and it fills me with a deep sense of gratitude and hope for our future.  

On behalf of the entire LHS family, I want to thank you again for your support and wish you a very happy and joyous Thanksgiving break.

Go Patriots!