Words are important.  They convey thoughts, ideas, concerns, feelings, and attitudes. They can be inviting and encouraging and they can be diminishing and limiting. We hope our use of words is intentional. We do know that in creating board policy and in reviewing and revising handbooks and Codes of Conduct words get a lot of attention, even little ones like 'can' and 'may'.  But emails and memos are often shot off without the same consideration and revision, so thinking about what words are communicating is often limited. Although much communication in schools can be done face-to-face, efficiency, equal access to the accurate information, and timeliness often call for these communications to be memorialized in writing. Read more...