Betsy's Bits
March 18, 2018
In Case You Missed It:
Another glimmer of hope and acknowledgment that what we are doing as a Stallion Team is working: During one of the fifth grade tours I was given my spill about our hands off expectation and what happens if they don't comply to one of the small groups that visited my office. This one particular group had lots of "what if" and "what about" questions. One of our Stallion tour guides spoke up and said, "We don't have time for a suspension. We are preparing for college. It's not worth it and colleges look at your discipline records, too. So just keep your hands off." Needless to say, the questions stopped. My hope is they all get it and don't have to learn the hard way.
Stallions had a very successful week in regional competitions last week. Ellen Duncan took our Art Club to the Artalympics and brought home a 3rd place in the large group and 17 individual ribbons. Our Science Club went with Bonnie Marshall to the Science Olympiad on Saturday. They brought home three first place finishes, two seconds, and two thirds. Anna Boone(2) and Corey VanderRoest(1) will be competing in state competitions for their first place wins. We had fantastic parental support and assistance at both events.
Anna Boone was awarded Lee County Schools Superintendent's Extra Effort Award at the Board Meeting on Thursday night.
Friday night we had a blast at the 8th grade dance. Our 8th grade team did a wonderful job creating an age appropriate afternoon and early evening of fun. They played in the gym, ate pizza and snacks, and danced until 7pm. Thank you to all the 8th grade teachers and a few spouses/significant others ;), Alice McIver, Denise Green, Karen Briggs, JT Owens, and Jamie Cox for making this special time for our "seniors" possible. Congratulations to Kenyan Palmer and Alicia Torres. They were voted 8th grade King and Queen.
We are so low on substitute bus drivers and have had to ask our teachers if they could help when we are in a pinch. Thank you to Jake Stevens for helping out week before last at the last minute. He even missed the soccer game that afternoon to ensure our kids made it home safely. He helped out again Friday afternoon without batting an eye. #whateverittakes :)
Several of our team came in on Saturday to learn more about Digitizing WICOR-based Instruction, Using Inquiry to Increase Rigor, and Writing to Learn and Interactive Notebooks. Thank you to Shakera Wilson, Christina Reed, Mark Hildreth, Josh Schneider, Kevin Degon, Angie Hegwer, Evan Roush, Zack Groves, Ashley Randolph, Bev Marshburn, Kim Vaughn, Jessica Gross, Sarah Yoder, and Katie Kline for your time! I can't wait to see what you bring back into your PLC's and classrooms after these engaging APLW's. We now have 60% of our staff that have 12+ hours in AVID approved training, which was another one of our site team goals this year. There are actually 4 people that need one more APLW to reach their 12 hours :). Our staff averages 19.8 hours of AVID training.
Thank you to ALL our certified staff for completing the NC Teacher Working Conditions Survey. We reached our 100% completion on Thursday. The compiled data should be released sometime next month.
Thank you to Anna Whalen and Jamie Cox for coordinating and planning the 5th grade tours. I so appreciate everyone's willingness to release kids out of class to tour, perform, and answer questions for our future Stallions. I loved the addition of going into classrooms so they could see us in action. Thank you to anyone willing to have them visit. It takes a lot of communication and flexibility between and within schools to make this successful. If felt these went extremely well! We still have our largest feeder school needing to reschedule due to our delayed start on Tuesday. I have not heard an official word, but know that Anna is working with them to secure a date and time which works for both schools.
I've heard and read positive comments about our peer AVID observations last week. I know that it was a crazy week and would have made things easier to postpone. My thought was that it was too important and very difficult to coordinate schedules. I believe it was well worth the time spent learning from each other. I don't think there is ever going to be a perfect time and as stated earlier in Bits, much of the craziness of this week was not scheduled. Sometimes we just have to power through to gain something in the end. I want to give a huge thank you and shout out to those teachers that opened their classrooms for visitors and feedback: Sarah Yoder, Vincent Pienaar, Cynthia Wicker, Kevin Degon, Miranda Colwell, Cindy Quiggle, Elizabeth Holland, Mark Hildreth, Christina Reed, Sheryl Bristow, Tonnette Wicker, Ashely Inman, Bianca DiMarcello, Bonnie Marshall, and Mary Berlauk. Please reflect on what you learned in your PLC's next week with your teams so others can learn from your experience.
We have amazing kids!
Coming Up:
Mark Your Calendars:
Tuesday: Soccer and volleyball vs. So. Middle, Curriculum Night 5-7pm
Wednesday: Last Day 3rd Q, Soccer and volleyball vs West Lee, McDonald's Night 5-8pm
Thursday: 5th Grade Open House 4:30-6pm
Reminder: Monday-Wednesday next week (March 26-28) we have benchmarks!