Empowering our Educators and motivating our Teachers! ricosharp.org.

He actually had— he came in on our pep rally, and we had our academic pep rally. He was here speaking to all the kids about making sure they take care of their family and all those good things like that. So now I'm going to give him some time to motivate you all, to fire you all up. So everyone, please, please give a round of applause for Mr. Rico Sharp.

Thank you. Well, good morning, good morning, good morning. Can you put your hands together one more time for our wonderful principal? Listen, I'm going to ask you to do something for me. I'm going to ask you if you can stand to your feet. If you can stand with me, please. I'm going to ask you to look at somebody on your left and your right and tell them you have something special.

You have Rico Sharp.

You can do all things. I can see you in your future, and you look so much better than you do right now. You're going to accomplish your dreams. You can achieve greatness. You're going to make some big things happen, and your school is going to benefit, and my students are going to benefit, and this region is going to benefit.

This region!

This city is going to benefit. This state is going to benefit. And the world is going to benefit because you are a world changer! I want you to do this one last time. Put your right hand there on your chest and say, I am someone special. I have greatness in my life. I can do whatever I set my heart to do. I will achieve greatness. I will live my dream. I will make a difference in this world. The world will know that I lived. History will record all of my achievements and all of my accomplishments. And together, we will achieve excellence. Together, we will take this school to an A+ school. I believe it. I'm ahead and I will not turn back. Now give yourself a round of applause. Thank you, thank you, thank you, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Rico Sharp. I'm a motivational speaker, student success expert. I'm a life coach and a leadership trainer, and I'm here today to talk to you about achieving excellence together. The first thing that I want to do is tell you that we appreciate your contributions. We appreciate what you bring to Jones High School. We appreciate what you bring to the educational industry. We appreciate the sacrifices that you make. We appreciate the long hours that you put in. We appreciate how that oftentimes you have to set your personal agenda To the side and the things that you want to do for yourself because you're making an impact, you're making a difference in the lives of our children. I come here to tell you that your efforts are not going unnoticed. What you're doing for our students today is shaping our world tomorrow. You're making a difference in this world. And history will record your contributions to humanity. You're doing something that not a lot of people will be able to accomplish, and that is you're doing something in the lives of children that is one day going to be our next president of the United States of America. They're going to be governors and senators. They're going to be doctors and lawyers. They're going to be attorneys and engineers. They're going to be architects. They're going to be school teachers. They're going to be principals. They're going to make a difference. They're going to contribute to this world. And it has all to do with what you do every morning when you wake up and you get dressed and you get in your automobile and you drive here to this school. You're coming here to do something that everyone is not going to sign up for. And I wanted you to know that you are appreciated. You are noticed. We see you. We hear you. We feel you. We see you. We hear you. We feel you. You're doing something big, you're doing something important. And then every now and again, somebody needs to stop and pat you on your back, give you a hug, shake your hand, and tell you, I'm proud of you. I'm proud of the accomplishments you're making. I'm proud of the difference that you're making. You see, as a schoolteacher, you're the one that gives the compliments to your students, and you tell them how proud you are of them. And they hear you, and they feel you, and they know that without you, they wouldn't be able to do the things they do today. The truth is that many of you are surrogate mothers and surrogate fathers to these children. Some of them does not have a relationship with their biological parents. When they come to this school, they're looking for you to not only educate them, but to also inspire them. They don't get the aspiration sometimes in their household or in their community. They come here to be inspired. They come here to borrow your aspiration, to borrow your belief in them so that they can apply that belief in themselves and begin to rise up to the occasion and the standard to accomplish their academic pursuit. You see, what you do is very special. You have to sacrifice a lot of your own time. You have to give a lot. Sometimes you're not able to really express how you feel because you have to stay focused on the assignment. You see, this school is a very, very important school, and all schools are important, but this school is even more important. Let me tell you why. It's important because You're here to do something in this school that needs to be done in every school, and that is to pour into the hearts of our children to the point where they can come back into this school and be able to enroll as teachers and as counselors and as assistant principals and as part of the faculty. You're here to make Jones High School rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed. You're here to make Mr. Jones, who established, who established the name for the school, and it was named after him because he purchased the property, his family donated the property that this school is built on. You're here to make that a dream come true for the students here. You're here to make some big things happen in this school. And sometimes when you dedicate your time and you dedicate your life to helping students, You don't always get the appreciation that you deserve. I was listening to Mr. Norwood talk to you and congratulate you about the things you're doing and the difference you're making, and I thought to myself, that's what we need. We need leaders that will reach back and say to those who are following in the shadows of great men and women that you're doing a great job, keep up the great work. And even though you're doing a great job, the day is still long. The task is still daunting. I heard him say that you want to become, or you're at the threshold of becoming, a B+ school. B+ is good, or a B school is good, but how many of you know that if we can make it to a B, we can also make it to an A? Let me hear from you. How many of you know that we can stand up here at Jones High School and become that model school and that beacon school for this district? district, for this region, for this state, that every school will want to be like. Now let me bring it a little closer home. This is an African American populated school, and believe it or not, and I'm sure you know, that means something. That means that you're raising up the next Dr. Martin Luther King. That means that you're raising up the next Dr. Maya Angelou. That means that you're raising up the next Reverend Jesse Jackson. That means that you're raising up the next President Barack Obama. That means that you're raising up the next world changer. That's what it's called right here out of Jones High School. Say it, stupid. The next world changer is coming out of Jones High School. But that also means that sometimes you're going to get a lot of attitude. It also means sometimes you're going to get a lot of flack. It also means that sometimes you're going to get a lot of resistance. It also means that sometimes you're going to deal with children that are broken in their heart because of the situation that's going on back home in the hood, in the ghetto. It also means that you're going to deal sometimes with children that really don't want to be in school because they're not focused on pursuing a future because things are not right at home. And see, you have to be able to navigate through all of that and reach that child and get to the heart of that child and help them to understand that regardless of how things are at home, I still believe in you and I know you have what it takes to do big things with your life and I'm not giving up on you and I'm going to be here for you and I'm going to fight for you and I'm going to pour into you until we get past this stage of being discouraged that you're in right now. And the truth is that while you're pouring into them, sometimes you have to go on to circumstances that are not so friendly and not so welcoming yourself. Sometimes you have to go home and deal with your own situation. Being a school teacher is a principle or a standard that not everyone wants to rise to. In 1856, there was this young man by the name of Booker T. Washington. He believed in education. He decided he wanted to be a schoolteacher, and he would walk 200 miles to school. At one particular time, he would get— he got a lot of resistance from people around him that did not want him to pursue his destiny and his dream. But he kept going forward because he believed that he was placed in this world to be a world changer. I'm born in this community called Booker Town, right outside Sanford. Booker Town is named after Booker T. Washington. When Mr. Booker T. Washington graduated, he went on and funded his own way to college and then began to pursue helping other people. to get an education. And in his work, in his life— and I believe he lived to be 59 years of age— in his lifetime, he established over 5,000 schools. It is possible to come from small, humble beginnings and do something great and notable in this world. And ladies and gentlemen, you have been elected, you have been chosen to do something great and notable in this world. You're not just an ordinary schoolteacher. You are an extraordinary teacher. You have an extraordinary gift. You have an extraordinary talent. You have an extraordinary strength. You have an extraordinary focus. You have an extraordinary patience. And you are doing things that everybody cannot do. There are some challenges that you have as a schoolteacher. One of the challenges is that you don't always have the funding to do the things that you want to do for your students. Sometimes there's inadequate funding. Sometimes there's endless paperwork. Sometimes you have an issue with time management. Sometimes you have an issue with adapting to educational transformation, educational trends. Sometimes there are issues with different learning preferences. It can become difficult sometimes getting through to kids that have special needs or special learning disabilities. Sometimes you have circumstances where you have to apply discipline to the student in different ways that are allowed. That can become challenging, especially when you have a child that's used to talking about you as their mother and talking about you as their father or don't know their father. And then come to school with that attitude and that personification and want to talk to you as if you don't matter. Sometimes you have to pull yourself back from wanting to say what you really want to say, and that requires self-discipline and restraint on your part. There are challenges sometimes with a lack of effective communication or poor communication. Sometimes kids are not reading the transmission of your dialogue. Sometimes They don't understand where you're coming from. Sometimes they think that you're just there to look down on them when you're actually there to bend down and lift them up. There are challenges with extended work hours. There are challenges with meeting school administration standards. There are challenges with having to remain competitive with other schools in the region. There are challenges Sometimes with safety and security within our school systems today. And then there are challenges with just simply being burnt out, working long hours, having to do homework in between periods, having to do homework at home, having to put in long hours during the day at school, having to go home and then foster your own children and parent them. Having to go home and then cook and clean and do all the things that you do. Sometimes it's challenging. Sometimes it's challenging. Can you just be real for a moment and tell somebody it's challenging sometimes? But the truth is, you were built for the challenge. You're made for the challenge. You signed up for the challenge. You're empowered for the challenge, and you have what it takes to overcome any challenges that anybody can throw at you. You are someone who is going to help this school to become an A school and achieve excellence together. And you know what? For what it's worth, I believe in you. I believe that you're going to do something That is going to shock the nation. I believe this school is going to rise up and be a school that shocks this district. I believe that you're going to contribute to humanity through this school in a way that will always outlive your time in this world. History is watching you. History is watching this school. History has its eyes on you. History has its ears open. History is observing your commitment. History is observing your dedication. And history is writing in the history books every day that you spend here at Jones High School. And so if history is watching, if history is listening, and if history is recording, then you might as well give history what it's looking for. You might as well rise up and declare, I'm going to do something Something that is so great, so big in this school that history will remember me long after I'm gone. As I get ready to get out of your way, say this with me: I have something special. I have something great. I am great, and I will do great things with my life, and I will make a difference in this world beginning at this school. Jones High School! If you believe that, give yourself one more time a round of applause. On behalf of the students you inspire, on behalf of the students you educate, on behalf of the students you parent, on behalf of the students you lead, And on behalf of all the students that's going to be coming into this school within a relatively short time to begin their school year, thank you for being such an inspired individual. Thank you for having unconditional love and acceptance for all students. Thank you for bringing your talent, your gifts, and your skills to Jones High School. Thank you for signing up to Thank you for training the next president. Thank you for training the next Kamala Harris. Thank you for training us. Thank you for protecting us. Thank you for believing in us. Thank you for making a difference. Thank you for going the distance. Thank you for going the extra mile. And thank you for making this school an A school and giving all you've got to do big things. Thank you. Here at Jones High. My name is Rico Sharp. Thank you so much for your time. God bless you. Together we will achieve excellence. Together we will achieve excellence. Together, together, together, together. Together, that's not loud enough. Together, together. God bless you all, Pastor. God bless you, the best kids and teachers. Thank you so much. God bless everyone.

Please give Mr. Rico Sharp another hand.

All right, Mr. Rico, thank you so much for those inspiring words. Thank you, thank you so much.

I will say, Mr. Rico Sharp, he is very tenacious. He's very tenacious. This man probably left about 100 messages, okay? But I'm glad that he did because his message was— it was so powerful and it will make sure you get in touch, okay? And I definitely want you to come out and talk to the kids some more, but I want to give you more time.

But thank you so much.

We definitely need you here. Once again, everybody, please give him a round of applause.

Thank you, Mr. Sharp.