Principal's Newsletter
February 10th, 2017
WOWS
WOW to Susan Bayne for being flexible and letting me work with one of her students at a different time so my Reading Recovery class could observe!--Makenzie Oldham
WOW to Susan Adams for problem solving on a student with me.--Makenzie Oldham
WOW to Christina Rosenow for working very late on Friday to get some things done for our team!--Makenzie Oldham
WOW to JoAnn Jeffreys and Joyce Highfill for taking the time to read the books I send home with my students with them when they don’t read at home! This extra practice is so helpful!--Makenzie Oldham
WOW to Maika Durant and Meredith Lecrone for helping to integrate Tyler Groves into our classroom for most instruction. He thrives on the challenge and social interaction of being a working part of our class!--Donna Baeten
WOW to Tony Beer for his flexibility in working out plans to help students be successful in the regular classroom, and to his paras for facilitating the plan day to day. It is amazing to see the growth in my students!--Donna Baeten
WOW to everyone who attended the First Grade field trip last week! It does take a village. :) ~ Lindsey
WOW to Linda Murphy for covering my students after a messy situation in my room. Karen Brockland
WOW to Angeline for allowing me to get cleaned up after this messy situation.--Karen Brockland
WOW to my first grade team for helping me out so much last week when I couldn’t make it to school! ~ JoAnn
WOW to the admin team for checking on me and making sure I didn’t need anything. ~JoAnn
WOW to Lindsey Crawford for covering my class and helping me get some testing completed when I was out!~ JoAnn
WOW to Christina Rosenow for offering to cover my class on the fieldtrip if I didn’t feel up to it! ~JoAnn
A huge thank you to Linda Carr. I appreciate you for many reasons. You are always open to help GW with any work he may need support on at that time. You listen to and praise him for successes he is having in class. You are a team player and willing to share ideas for ways to help him get the most out of his time with you. Last, thank you for knowing I needed a hug and kind words with no questions asked. Kimberley Whitworth
Wow to Stacey C and Lisa for lunch the other day. Chinese take-out has secret, hidden healing powers.Kimberley W
Thank you to everyone at 2nd grade intervention discussion. I know the meetings are for us to discuss student needs and how to help them. However, I find I learn and grow as well. Each of you bring different experiences, expertise, and ideas to these discussions. What a gift we have in the people we work with. Kimberley Whitworth
A big WOW to everyone who took the time to congratulate me for Teacher of the Year. I was overwhelmed with everyone’s kind words and thoughtfulness. Thanks again!!--Erica Coyne
WOW to Drew Moersch! You have the patience of a saint!--Dr. DeWeese
Thank you to Linda Murphy for meeting our Hawk Connection kids in the morning when Latonya and I were at district meetings.--Sherry Reagan
WOW to the kindergarten team for all your hard work on the community helper unit. Thanks for making it a relevant learning experience for the kids. They loved it!--Dr. DeWeese
WOW to Kristen Schrameyer and Ruth Zerface for staying very late two nights in a row to get our new kinders registered. --Dr. DeWeese
WOW to Susan Adams and Shanna Bradley for planning the coding activity.--Dr. DeWeese
WOW to Mr. Beer for persevering! Megan Brown
WOW to Kelly Edwards for all of her work with my class to create videos of their community helper reports using the green screen. They are so cute!!!--Julie Coombs
WOW to Melissa Barth for representing our team on the district writing and curriculum committees.--Julie Coombs
WOW to Susan Gorris for always organizing activities for the whole grade level.--Julie Coombs
Thank you to the 2nd grade team for offering to help and write sub plans for me Friday. I am proud to be part of such an incredibly supportive and caring team. Kimberley
Thank you Alicia for updating and sharing the SNB file for each week’s spelling lessons.--Kim Whitworth
WOW to Shanna Bradley for helping the students working on bus slips to get started before I arrived. Thank you, Shanna! You're the best!--Linda Appelbaum
WOW to Ms. Brockland, Mrs. Murphy, Mrs. Foster, Dr. DeWeese, and Dr. OH for your support when subbing this past week. I really appreciated the help and support throughout the day. Thank you all! You are awesome! Megan Baker
WOW to Karen Brockland- we have three students new to our building who came in with "warning labels" stamped on them. You've done a great job building relationship and routine with them, and all three of them were perfect 1st graders on the field trip!--Greg Vest
WOW to Drew Button- you made another baby!--Greg Vest
WOW to Stacey Schuette- thank you for helping with the packets for Family Reading Night!--Greg Vest
WOW to Dionne, Christina, Mackenzie, Jodi your help with One Book One School has been so great!--Greg Vest
WOW to Nathan Mack- thanks for lunch!--Greg Vest
Stone Soup
Intervention Progress Monitoring Meetings
We have come so far in this process as a building. Your conversations were filled with strategies that are working for kids and ideas to make kids more successful. Thank you for all the learning you have done in the past year to make this system a success and to implement new materials. Your hard work is helping us catch kids and put the right supports in place for kids. I loved seeing the collaboration between teachers, administrators, reading specialists, interventionists, and our literacy coach. Thanks for taking time out of your classrooms to make this happen.
PD Day
Hello everyone! Our next PD day will be Friday, February 17th. Most certified staff will remain at their home school with the exception of a few areas listed below. The learning will focus on Instructional Strategy best practice, provided by our building CITW trainers. Groups with alternate PD locations include:
· K-5: Art, Music, PE, Reading Specialists, Resource, & Hearing Impaired
· K-8: Gifted
· 6-8: MS Math
· 6-12: READ180/System 44 & World Language
· K-12: ESOL, Counselors, ESC, LMS, Essential Skills, OT/PT, Sanctuary Teams
· Pre K-12: SLP
· EC Paras & PreK-12 SpEd Paras- home school or CPI training at FHMS. The CPI vs. building PD schedule will be communicated through SEAM administrators.
Committee Meeting Minutes
Safety and Security
Data Team
This meeting was cancelled because we have not received the Data Trigger Sheet yet from the district.
Staffing and Class Lists Timeline
Once staffing has been announced we will begin to work on class lists for next year. I will place the parent requests. On February 23rd, SPED, ELL, Spectra, and the counseling team will work to place students. Those list will be sent to EDCs for teams to place the remaining students into classes. Once the lists have been completed all changes will need to be approved by me.
Oops Box
I have noticed two different counselors having keys to the supply closet with the large "OFFICE PERSONNEL ONLY" sign it makes me feel like they are somehow more valued or trusted than teachers. We have different positions, but I would consider us equals. I have tried to rationalize it in my mind that possibly they may have master keys because they may need them in an emergency, but regardless I think they should follow the same procedure the teachers have been asked to follow. This is just something that has been eating at me, I hope it makes sense.
Response
Counselors do not have their own master key. When they need to enter the supply closet for the purpose of getting supplies and food for students they get the key from Jane. Counselors run our back pack program and take care of getting students other needed supplies and all of these items are housed in the supply closet. All of the student files are located in the closet and counselors need to frequently access those files because they oversee all 504 files. They do follow the same process as teachers.
The only staff members that have a master key are administrators, Tessa Golden, Ruth Zerface, Jane Hepler, Pete Beck, Custodians, Karen Brockland (because kids tend to lock her out of the room), and Angie Reagan (to open the book room for teachers). Key distribution is an administrative decision and is not based on valuing one staff member over the other. It is based on the need and role of the staff member owning the key. We are allotted a specific number of master keys as they are very expensive to purchase and to replace if lost.
Oops
I think it was an "oops" to read the TOY and the SSOY nominations in front of the student body. I think presenting the awards was a great idea but...since specific students were referenced (I know not by name) they probably recognized themselves as divorced, challenging or possible failure, etc. You get the idea. Most of these are intermediate students that may have thought, "Hey, I am that person in my teacher's class." I imagine they felt shamed. I believe these were adult comments for adult ears. I also think that if they are SPED students it breaks confidentiality. I applaud your efforts to present in a meaningful way and should continue in the future just please don't read the nomination paragraphs to students. Thank You
Response
The intent to read the nominations was not to shame students and did not break confidentiality. The intent was to provide staff and students an opportunity to come together as a community to celebrate the hard work for students and staff. When we present the awards with just staff it has to be a voluntary meeting and tends to have low attendance. We wanted all the nominees to feel the love from their students and from the person that nominated them.
I apologize if you feel we should not celebrate in this way, but we are working hard to build a positive school community and to make sure we take the time to appreciate staff. We also wanted to show our appreciation for all the people who took the time to nominate someone. In the future we will be asking for a TOY and SSOY task force so I will share this feedback with that task force for future planning. Again, I apologize if you felt that it was inappropriate, but we did receive a number of emails and comments from staff about what a great idea it was to celebrate together and to read the nominations.
Collective Commitment Results
We are committed to using assessments to provide research-based instruction and interventions to create engaging lessons that are differentiated by student needs.
Bobo's Fundraiser
The district provides all buildings with a budget, but the money can only be spent on instructional items. By increasing our student activity account we will be able to help PTO purchase the new screens for the gym, replace all the artwork around the building, purchase classroom library materials, and purchase items to support our PBIS system. We will start communicating with parents soon, but I just wanted you to know this was coming.