Fox Den Newsletter "Expect to Grow"
February 5-19
Our Mission and Goals
Mission Statement:
Our mission at Fletcher Elementary, through partnership with our children, families, and communities, is to educate our students by meeting the individual needs of the whole child, ensuring successful, productive, responsible citizens while providing a safe and nurturing environment.
Congratulations on achieving 5.01 growth last year!
SIP Goal 1: Fletcher Elementary will meet or exceed expected growth and meet all Annual Measurable Objectives.
SIP Objectives:
1. Our K-2 composite Reading scores will increase from 83% to 90% on grade level and our 3-5 Career and College Ready proficiency will increase from 53.3% to 75%.
2. Our K-2 math proficiency will increase from 88% to 93% on grade level and our 3-5 Career and College Ready proficiency will increase from 62.3% to 80%.
Playing with Matches
By Amy Pace
In teams, students illustrated the environments and organisms that are found in each region, from coastal plains to the mountains. They then presented their posters to the class. Everyone took notes in their Field Books.
The second part of their lesson was very exciting! Students learned about the importance of a maintained forest. Using matches to represent trees, students created a “maintained” forest with nicely spaced match sticks. The “unmaintained” forest consisted of matches that were broken, close together, and some lying on their sides. This was to represent debris and branches that litter an unmaintained forest. Students hypothesized what would happen if each forest were to be struck by lightning. “Lightning” then struck each forest. Students were able to see how in a maintained forest, only one tree would be destroyed, versus the unmaintained forest, where many more trees were burned and the fire was able to spread quickly. An unmaintained forest fire! Everyone had a great time and a wonderful experience!
Thank you Mrs. Pace for providing this excellent learning opportunity for your students and for sharing your write up and pictures. You an also see her story on the Henderson County Public Schools' website, Twitter feed, and Facebook page!
All Sorts of Odds and Ends!
You may have heard the State Board of Education is considering dropping Standard 6 from the teacher evaluations. This topic was discussed at the February 4 board meeting but no action was taken. I will keep you posted if/when more information is available.
Due to the snow days, our last school day is now Friday, June 10 and we will have school on March 25 also. If you need a new copy of the calendar, they are available on the HCPS' website.
For next week's faculty meeting, we will continue to look at some of Max Thompson's recommendations about best practices for increasing achievement. Many of you have begun implementation of the extended reading passages or the guided reading format he recommends, which is great! Please let me, Dianne, or Ashley know if we can help in any way.
Also, for the faculty meeting, please bring samples of students' written TRC answers for those students who at the middle of the year were "blue". We will use these in grade level meetings in the next month to look at how we are scoring. For third grade teachers, please bring samples of those you scored N, O, or P.
The county phonics committee yesterday met again and is getting close to a final decision. The choices continue to be Letterland or Fundations and we now need you as grade levels to look at the resources and information to determine what your grade level preference would be.
Big Brothers Big Sisters Bowl for Kids' Sake 2016
Also, to raise money for this worthwhile cause, all staff members can buy jeans days for the week of February 15-19. You can pay for $5 per day or $20 for the whole week. If possible, please turn in payments to Andrea by Friday, February 12.
Congratulations Mrs. Norman on the birth of Lawson!
Fletcher Birthdays!
Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday dear Fletcher Fox Family Members! Happy birthday to you!
2/8 Lynn Elliott