Hexter Hawks
Growing Strong: Bodies, Hearts, and Minds
Welcome Back to School!
Dear Hexter Hawks Community –
I’d like to begin by thanking our faculty, staff, students, parents and community for an OUTSTANDING first week of school. The 2016-2017 school year promises to be the best year yet!
We had an outstanding Meet the Teacher night with the largest attendance in quite some time followed by a high-energy and productive start of school. A huge thank you goes out to everyone who made these events possible. I am so grateful for all of your hard work and dedication to our school and amazing students.
Have you joined our PTA? I hope so! The V. H. Hexter Elementary is one of the largest and most active in the state of Texas, and we owe this distinction to the participation of all of our parents, students, staff, and the many community members that continue to show interest in our school. Our first general PTA meeting is on Thursday, September 15, in the auditorium.
The festivities begin at 6 pm with Grillin’ on the Pavilion. Bring $4 and enjoy a hot dog, chips, and lemonade. Open Road Shaved Ice will also be on campus providing the best sno-cones in DFW. The PTA meeting will begin at 7pm. Our annual “Grillin’” is a fundraiser supporting our 5th grade Science Camp and we hope to see everyone there!
Over the summer our teachers’ professional learning focused on strategies for Personalized Learning where educational activities are designed to be ONE size fits ONE. Many of you are seeing these strategies in action from the classrooms with flexible seating, restorative classroom management techniques, and the shift from teacher-directed assignments to open-ended types of assignments such as extended authentic reading time for homework in some instances.
This independent reading time is very important and has been scaffolded by the teacher in the classroom. Students are taught how to select appropriate books and need you to confer with them to assess their understanding of what they have read by asking questions, such as “What’s going on in your book?” “Who is your favorite character?” “Is there a character that reminds you of someone we know?” etc.
In addition, children need time to read—a lot of time. Time spent reading contributes to achievement in ways that simply doing worksheets or other activities do not (Allington, 2002; Foorman et al 2006). This is not to discount the other tasks and activities that students have for homework but some grade-levels have decided to emphasize the importance of reading through their homework tasks. So, everyone, grab a good book and let’s read!
Next week we launch our much anticipated Kindle Kick-Off in grades 3 - 5. I am so excited about the kinds of learning opportunities the kindles will help provide for our students. I am in awe of the staggering amount of hours and hard work teachers put in this summer to provide the highest quality learning experience possible for our students through the kindles. I hope you are ready! It is going to be an amazing school year!
With much excitement and gratitude –
Dr. Jennifer Jackson, Ph.D.