Lake Havasu Unified School District Superintendent Gail Malay called it lifelong learning, telling educators gathered at Wednesday’s Back to School rally they played a critical role in establishing their students’ futures.

Tony Waggoner/News-Herald Photo. The K-12 Foundation and principals from the Lake Havasu Unified School District schools pose with checks awarded to each school at Wednesday’s Back to School rally by the foundation.

Just days after Arizona Institute to Measure Standards test scores revealed the district to be one of the highest performing in the state, Malay told educators to be proud, but to also know that it isn’t enough.

She said lifelong learning is the foremost survival skill for the students entering the complex world of today.

“This generation is dealing with very complex issues to solve that my generation couldn’t,” Malay told the audience of around 500 educators and students inside the Lake Havasu High School Performing Arts Center.

The rally kicked off Wednesday morning with the K-12 Foundation members entering the building to the theme from Rocky and bearing gifts for each of the nine LHUSD school principals. The foundation awarded each principal with a check of $3,000. Malay said the district received $27,000 total from the foundation.

But the focus of Wednesday’s rally was the future of the district and its students.

Educators need to be prepared for what is next, LHUSD Assistant Superintendent Barbara Goodwin said.

“Ask yourself is what you are doing, teaching and creating relevant to our students,” Goodwin told the crowd.

In the next decade half of high school courses would be delivered online, Malay said. And online courses would bring forward even more changes and challenges for educators.

“Because the world is changing so rapidly we all have to be flexible,” Malay said. “Think in strengths and not weaknesses.”

And teachers are the first line of defense. Malay said what teachers give to their students would come back to them at some point, as their former students go out into the world.

Teachers should teach for lifelong skills and not a lifelong job, she said. The students of today won’t enter the same workforce people do today. They would find themselves always moving forward and in perpetual motion in their professional lives, she said.

The district had six schools receiving an excelling label from AZ Learns, but Malay told the group the future would be more than just teaching the basic skills. She noted schools and teachers should always be asking if they are keeping up in other areas such as science, arts, physical education, social studies and maybe, most importantly, technology.

“You cannot get a good job today without good technology skills,” she said.

As part of the lifelong learning process, Malay said people should be asking themselves early on if they believe they have made a difference and left an imprint. She said she believes making a difference comes with the job.

“It doesn’t matter what you do in our business, because you leave an imprint every day,” she said.

But with teaching beyond basic skills also comes teaching core values. Malay said teaching honesty and integrity and trust go right in line with teaching life skills.

And now studies are showing the earlier a child is taught the better chance he or she has in the future, Merritt Beckett from First Things First told the crowd. Beckett said studies are now showing parents need to start teaching their children basic learning skills between the age of zero and 3 years old.

“If you wait until five years of age, it is too late,” she said. “They need support early on to help establish the brain for later learning.”

Beckett said studies have shown children who attend a high-quality pre-school are more likely to go on to college and higher education.

You may contact the reporter at twaggoner@havasunews.com.