Dear SAISD Family Member,
 
It has truly been an exceptional week, and we are extremely excited about our future and the outstanding opportunities that await us in 2022. We must continue to dream and dream big!
 
As we continue to move forward and cultivate our “79 Square Miles of Excellence,” we are reminded of a popular quote by the late, great, Coach John Wooden: “There is a choice you have to make in everything you do. So keep in mind that in the end, the choice you make, makes you.”
 
The story of two pebbles reminds us just how important our choices can be.
 
There was once a farmer in a small village who owed money to a very mean, unpleasant man. The farmer had a beautiful daughter who the lender was sweet on, so the lender proposed a deal. The lender said he would dissolve the debt if he could marry the farmer’s daughter.
 
Both the farmer and his daughter were horrified regarding this proposition. So the lender then suggested that chance could determine the outcome of the deal. The lender told the farmer and his daughter that he would put two pebbles, one black and one white, in an empty money bag. 
 
Without looking, the farmer’s daughter would pick out one of the pebbles. If she picked the black pebble, she would have to marry the lender, and her father’s debt would be eliminated. If she picked the white pebble, she would not have to marry the lender and her father’s debt would still be eliminated. 
 
If the farmer’s daughter refused to pick a pebble, her father would go to jail. 
 
While speaking, the old lender leaned forward and picked up two pebbles. As he was picking them up, the farmer’s daughter, with a sharp eye, noticed that the lender picked up two black pebbles and placed them in the bag. But she said nothing. The lender then asked the daughter to pick a pebble out of the bag. The entire time, this discussion was taking place on the road in front of the farmer’s house, and the road was paved solid with black and white pebbles.
 
Imagine for an instant, what would you have done? What would you have suggested the daughter do? 
 
If we analyze the situation, there are several possibilities. First, the daughter could refuse to pick a pebble, sending her father to jail. Second, the daughter could pick out both pebbles, proving the old lender had cheated. And third, the daughter could pick out one of the black pebbles, sacrificing herself to marry the lender but saving her father from imprisonment and vanishing the debt.
 
This story is meant to illustrate a point. The difference between logical thought and so-called lateral thought. The daughter’s dilemma can’t be resolved in an equitable manner using traditional logic. Here is what the daughter did. 
 
She plunged her hand into the bag, picked a pebble, and clumsily dropped it to the ground. Before it could be determined whether the pebble she picked was black or white, it mixed in with all the other pebbles on the ground. “Oh my gosh! I am so clumsy!” said the farmer’s daughter. “But if I remove the other pebble from the bag, then we will know which pebble I picked first.”        
 
Since the second pebble was black, then the first pebble had to have been white. The lender did not dare announce his cheating; therefore, the farmer’s daughter transformed a seemingly impossible situation into an advantageous moment.
 
Each and every day in SAISD, we are faced with a series of great opportunities brilliantly disguised as difficult situations. As we continue to move forward as a school district, we are also committed to working together with our stakeholders in providing our students with a future of hope and endless possibilities.
 
Florence Scovel Shinn once stated: “Every great work, every big accomplishment, has been brought into manifestation through holding on to the vision.” On behalf of our Board of Trustees and the entire SAISD, thank you for your “vision” to see things as they should be and for reminding us all, we are too great for small dreams.
 
Have a wonderful weekend and Happy Hollidays!
 
"Dr. J"
 
Robert Jaklich, Ed. D.
 
"Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever."
~Mahatma Gandhi