Welcome Back Wildcats!
Back to Basics
Welcome Back
Greetings Good People!
You may be experiencing a bit of school withdrawal as I am, though maybe not. This summer has seemed so long, and I for one am looking forward to kicking off another new year!
A lot of work has been accomplished over the summer. Our office staff has been busy with student registration and getting the facility and supplies organized along with numerous other tasks that you and I don't ever realize, but without which we would be up the proverbial creek. I appreciate these ladies so much, they are a big part of our success at LaCreole! Tyler and I have had a chance to work together on the organizational nuts and bolts as well. I believe Tyler is going to be a great fit for us. We have hired a new counselor, Terri Wilcox, who has already been back learning with Rhonda and touching base with kids. She will be great! Our district maintenance crew has been busy getting our buildings ready for staff and students, and ours looks amazing once again.
This school year is going to be a great one! As far as our program is concerned, we will not be looking to add anything new, which will be something new for us! Instead, together we will work toward doing those most important things great -- working with kids and focusing on our teaching! In short, we will be taking time to refocus on our mission as a school and how we serve our students to the best of our ability. We will work to fine tune our PLCs and teaching practices to ensure we get the most out of these professional development opportunities to positively impact student learning.
I am looking forward to seeing you all!
Jamie
Much To Look Forward To
I am looking forward to our school year together! We will have just a few new faces amongst our teaching staff this year, but will have a whole host of new educational assistants joining us, and we look forward to having these new people on our team. Please welcome:
Emily Bogle-Todd: 8th ELA
Amy McFarland, DLC
Mike Hettwer, Band
Terri Wilcox, Counselor
Tyler Lalack, Assistant Principal
Troy Lieuallen, Custodian
Chris Brees: EA SLP
Caylee Britt, EA ERC
Paulette Parker, EA DLC
Ashley Earls, EA DLC
Ronald Rothstein, EA PASSroom
Aeris Fast, EA Autism Technician
Rhonda Stackhouse, EA ERC
Michelle Howard, EA DLC
Devan Zinzer, EA SLP
We will also have Doug Gouge and intern Angela Bodwell from Polk County Mental Health in our building on a part-time basis. We are excited to have them and thankful for the services they provide our students.
Inservice Week Planning
Monday, August 31, beginning at 8 a.m. we will have a brief welcome-back staff meeting in the library, at which time I will provide you an overview of the week. Light refreshments will be provided.
Back to Basics!
We have a lot to be proud of here at LaCreole. Last year, we as a staff took on the challenge of student engagement. I cannot express enough how proud I am of you all for taking risks and being OK with the possibility of mistakes. We saw kids having to work to learn for themselves, collaborate more and develop technical skills and tools to get that work done. There was relevance and hands-on learning involved and we saw ways to test the rigor of tasks and adjusting as needed. Yes, we all were encouraged to use more technology, but I hope that we learned that, though technology is a great tool for engagement, the most important piece is the teacher's willingness to let go a bit and take risks! I appreciate your efforts as I know our parents and kids do as well. I am excited to see what new ideas and discoveries come this year to benefit student engagement and learning!
Tuesday, Sept. 1st - morning will be our first staff professional development session for the year from 8:30 to 11:00 in the library. I want this time to be useful. With our limited time, we will talk kids and how we as a school maintain this focus with all the other things that seem to be clamoring for our energies. In this session, I hope to brainstorm ways that we as a staff can make our advisory time impactful for our kids and school community.
Tuesday, Sept. 1st - afternoon we will meet together as a staff for an hour or so to focus on how we continue to improve our PLC process. During this session, we will take time to learn about data driven dialogue, what it is, and what it isn't.
Taking time to set our priorities early will help us plan for growth this school year. I may have said this before, but our staff is amazing! We have a very unique school, and I so appreciate each of you and your commitment to our kids.
Wildcat Fiesta, A LaCreole Tradition
Following our staff meeting on Tuesday we will have our annual Wildcat Fiesta welcome-back potluck! Thanks once again to Roger for heading up this endeavor. It is nice to see old friends and colleagues and sit and enjoy each other’s company. We will be serving about 45 people, Please contribute as follows:
- Office - meat and taco shells
- 8th Grade - side salads, chips/dip
- 6th Grade - desserts
- Electives/Exploratory - drinks
- 7th Grade - sides for tacos
- PE - plates, silverware, napkins