Friday Focus
February 5, 2016
I am going to start off with a few calendar/timeline items so we are all on the same page.
Feb. 9th (next Tuesday) we have the make up day for spring conferences from 3:30 to 7:30. The HS building is going to use this time for PLC. I have a few departments that are focusing on curriculum or data and I would like to see all of the departments to use this time to organize or discuss. At 6:30 PM, I would like everyone to come eat dinner and have some celebration time in Mrs. Heins classroom.
Feb. 12th (next Friday) is our PLC day from 8:00 to 1:00. I will get an agenda out, but the basics are us meeting as a staff and going over a few things. One thing I would like for us to do is some brainstorming over a few UOI sections to get us all on the same page. I will also spend some time talking about wrapping up the Professional Development Plan for the year so I can work on summative evaluations this month. I also want us to all bring a sample of student growth tracking or goal sheets. I will send out a separate email with the details on that. The agenda also has time for SPED then Athletic/Activities to meet.
The rest of Feb., I will be working on completing observations. I am going to make a final push to get to the goals I set for myself this year. Then, I will get end of the year summative evaluations done for everyone so I have them ready for the March board meeting.
I received some good feedback from telling the story about the TV purchase last week so I wanted to share another one I have been getting harped on about. I have been working with Marci to get an overall construction update so everyone knows where and why the money was spent, but I wanted to share one more with you first. Below is the explanation I provided the central office for the purchase of the sound system in the body conditioning room.
Jason Clark requested a device that he could speak into so the entire class could hear him in an effort to keep him from shouting all day long to get over the classroom noise generated with 20 plus students working out. Principal Scott Daly asked Mr. Clark to research some different ways he could accomplish this and still be able to move around the room versus being tied down to the teacher desk. Mr. Clark looked at several different systems and finally decided to get a bid from Pure Audio. The owners of Pure Audio agreed to sell us the system at their wholesale cost and donate all of the labor of the install. With this agreement, we were able purchase a system valued at or above $9,500 for a little less than $3,300. Mr. Daly agreed to this purchase due to our ability to save a large sum of money with the Pure Audio bid and the educational need for the teacher and the students.
The device was installed and it allows Mr. Clark to wear a wireless headset and have his voice broadcasted over the speakers. This amplification of his natural voice allows for all students to clearly hear instructions and motivational comments without having to stop their workout. This helps the teacher by not straining his voice everyday to be heard and makes our body conditioning room safe. When the coach sees students acting in an unsafe manner, he can immediately address them over the speakers so they stop before they get hurt. The system does have the ability to play music so Mr. Clark uses that function to make working out more enjoyable for the students. That seems to be a reasonable use of the sound system given the amount of people who use music in their daily workouts. The music can play constantly and then Mr. Clark can press a button on his microphone to be heard over the top of the music playing.
This information is going to soon be out in the public so I wanted to make sure you heard it from me first. If there are more things you want to know about, ask me or come to the lunch with Mr. Robertson and get it straight from the top.