School Board Report for OTES
April 2019
Garden Clean Up and Art Fair on April 27th
We will have our annual garden clean-up day on April 27th from 9 am to Noon. This annual event is a great community service project for our families to support our school. Each year we work to clean out the gardens, spruce up the playground, and tend to the curb appeal of our school. We have partnered with the Univerisity of Maine students to support this event and have been struck by the number of young people willing to get involved and be part of this day.
This year, we are adding our annual ART FAIR into this experience. This is a first, so we are not sure how it will go, but changing things up and getting new ideas is a great part of being in an active school. The art fair will feature several "ART INSTALLATION" projects they have completed in the school year.
KINDERGARTEN: Installation of colored rock features
FIRST GRADE: Created plant labels for our gardens
SECOND GRADE: Cloth Dyeing project woven through the fence
THIRD GRADE: Ceramic pieces to hang in the raised beds
FOURTH GRADE: Five Banners to be attached to the fence
FIFTH GRADE: Ceramic mosaic cinder blocks in the garden area.
We will be giving families tours of the gardens and grounds as part of the ART Fair experience.
Books on the Bus
We have pulled many pieces together to get a pilot program started on Bus B (one of our longest bus rides in the district) and to begin seeing how we can expand the experience for other buses in our district. We will start to have our students experience the books on the bus program after April Vacation.
We are pleased to have some partners in our project. The Rotary donated $240 for the seat covers to hold the books while they are on the bus. In our pilot program, we are only covering 6 seats at the front of the bus to start. We have received donations of books from various sources and have been extremely excited about the variety of books to place on the bus.
If all goes as planned, we will try to expand this initiative in the next school year to give other students an opportunity to look and read books on the bus.
5th Grade Celebration
The parents have been meeting to do a little fundraising to support this event and to brainstorm ideas of the celebration. We are planning to have the celebration on June 11th with a rain date of June 12. We will give you more information as the plans come together for us at OTES.
Summer Plans Taking Shape
Last year, we teamed with the Special Education Program to offer transportation and meals for these students. We also developed some fun learning themes for the four weeks we offered summer programming. These themes really sparked students engagement and attendance at the summer school experience. We are looking forward to having the school used and students being in our hallways.
Other projects: Virtual Summer School will begin again this year. This supports learners in the grades 3-5. Students are assigned lessons or writing prompts through Google Classroom and work on those lessons throughout the week. The students gain points throughout the week and the summer to enter in for prizes at the end of the summer learning season.
Our teachers are submitting several projects for continued Professional Development Activities throughout the summer. The activities are usually connected to their goals in their PG and PE evaluation process.
Upcoming Events at OTES
April 22: MEA SCIENCE TESTING 5th Graders
April 26: 4th Grade Trip to Augusta
April 27: Garden ART FAIR and Clean Up
May 1: 4th and 5th Grade Chorus Concert
May 2: PTC Meeting
May 3: World of Work Day
May 6: Teacher Appreciation Week