Good Morning!
A.M. Announcements
Build School Community

Are your morning announcements deadly dreary and dull? Education World’s "Principal Files" team shares how they have used daily announcements to build school "community." Included: Ideas for spicing things up, getting kids involved, more.

Some schools present morning announcements as part of a daily closed-circuit-TV broadcast. Others use public address (PA) or e-mail technology. Many forego any kind of technology; an announcement sheet stuffed into teachers’ mailboxes each morning works just fine. Although the format of their schools’ "morning announcements" might vary, members of Education World’s Principal Files Team seem to agree that morning announcements are a proven way to set the tone for the day and build morale and a sense of school "community."

Most of us have a morning routine that varies little from the time we rise until the moment we hear the first bell of the school day. (From that point on, we have to be ready for anything!)So, it is not surprising that — creatures of habit that we are — there is something very comforting about having a routine format for the morning announcements of each school day.

THE MORNING ROUTINE

Goooooooooooood morning, Warriors! That get-ready-for-the-day call is heard each morning by 850 students at Goodwyn Junior High School in Montgomery, Alabama. The familiar intercom announcement, a reference to the school’s mascot, is echoed each day by principal Marie Kostick as she psyches up