Change---"to make different, to alter or vary; to do or say a thing in many ways."

Change is the keystone that holds the framework of education together. It is change that ultimately makes us different, that triggers our growth, and that allows us to reach the potential to which we strive. However, change is not easy. Change is not comfortable. Change is threatening. Change is scary. Change is inevitable!

2001-2002 has been a year of tremendous change in the lives of each and every one of us. 9-11-01 has, without question, changed the world in which we Americans live. Gone is the complacent, safe life that we had come to think of as our American heritage. Change has forced us to deal with our own fears, our own realization of the dangers that exist in the world, and our own mortality. Who would have ever thought that we, as Americans, would be forced to deal with such reality?

 The youth of today have issues to deal with that we never imagined would cloud their very future. This year, the faculty, the staff, the community, and the parents of our youth have had an awesome task---to reassure our young people that the American dream is still alive and well and yet to teach them the necessity to walk ahead with caution and the awareness that terror exists everywhere in the world. Live in constant fear? Never!!! It isn't the American way!!! Life in a state of constant awareness of the dangers that could exist? Absolutely, for ignorance is not bliss.

 Rising Sun Middle School, our parents, our community, and Maryland Materials, our Partners in Education, strive to hold onto and perpetuate the American dream for the youth of tomorrow. Only through education is this possible!