Mark's Monday Morning Memo
September 19, 2016
STARBASE
I had a great day at STARBASE last Monday. Students were engaged all day long learning STEM concepts, launching rockets, measuring distance, and learning to code by programming Mars rovers. Thank you to the teachers and staff for being part of that, to our district for organizing the experience, and to PTO for providing the transportation.
Students engaged with their group leader, Viper
Launching rockets
Programming a mars rover
Zero the Hero
Zero the Hero showed up on the kindergartners' 10th day of school, September 13. He's making return visits on the 20th, 30th, 40th, 50th, 60th, 70th, 80th, 90th, and 100th days of school. He's even got a theme song!
Morning and Afternoon Supervision and Safety
Thank you to staff members for supervising students at the beginning and end of the day. Here are my expectations. Everyone is assisting with supervising when students arrive and when they are dismissed. In the morning at 9:22, classroom teachers are at their classroom doors and specialists are assisting in hallways and other common areas. The majority of our special education team are greeting their students at the buses. Chris, Chantele, and I are out front at carpool and/or buses. At dismissal, I welcome any of you who like to be outside helping with bus supervision and dismissal. At a minimum, I'd like one member of your team outside assisting. You may work among yourselves on how you want to determine who that is. As we work to make sure buses are consistently on time, we'll need fewer people outside. As buses arrive and we need fewer adults outside, Chris, Chantele, or I may say, "thank you" and let those supervising leave. Thank you for your support with this.
Let's Send Someone to Space Camp
Here is a great opportunity for teachers to earn an all expenses trip to Space Camp. This space based professional development is well respected and highly sought out. Honeywell is currently taking applications for 2017. They pay for everything, including travel, lodging, etc. Here’s a link to the application: https://educators.honeywell.com/application
Late Start on September 29th
The topic for our professional learning on the September 29, 2016, late start is HCM (Hopkins Compensation Model) and TDE (Teacher Development and Evaluation). Licensed staff members will meet together from 8:15-9:15 then will meet in PLC groups from 9:15-10:15.