Crystal's Corner
September 4, 2015
Enjoy the l-o-n-g holiday weekend!
GOAL #1: STUDENT GROWTH & DEVELOPMENT
Our Lawrence High cheerleaders, both Varsity and JV teams, excelled in a four-day summer camp competition at the Universal Cheerleading Association (UCA) in the Poconos in mid-August. Both teams competed against various teams throughout the country.
Freshman Maura Canavan made UCA All-American and is invited to cheer at the Philadelphia Thanksgiving Parade.
Sophomore Skylar Guadagno and senior Julianne Hughes both made UCA All-American and are invited to cheer at the London, UK New Year Parade.
The JV squad won 5th place for their Sideline Cheer routine and the Overall Most Improved Award in the JV Division.
The Varsity squad won 1st place for their Sideline Cheer, 3rd place for their Extreme Routine, and 4th place for their timeout cheer in the Advanced Varsity division.
LHS Health and PE Teacher Adrienne Landolfi coaches the Varsity team with assistant volunteer Elizabeth Watson. LHS Spanish teacher Victoria Chludzinski and assistant volunteer Allie DeLeon coach the JV team.
UCA All-Americans
Varsity
Junior Varisty
GOAL #2: CULTURE OF LEARNING FOR ALL
The week of August 24 was New Teacher Orientation. At the end of last week, I shared a very casual video with you of the new teachers waving to the camera as they came back from lunch. Over 50 new hires attended the week-long PD. Which reminds me...thanks again for getting together for a quick BOE meeting at noon on Sept. 1 so we could hire even more people and have them in place for the first day of school.
September 1 was Opening Day when staff returned. Even though black shirts, red fans, and unsmiling faces were in abundance, the session format, administrators and new staff were upbeat. In addition to introducing new staff and those getting tenure this year, I showed the video purposely created in June to be shown on the new year's opening day. We shared that video with you earlier this week.
August 27 I met with the directors about rubrics designed for evaluating different categories of staff.
CIAPD met yesterday and Personnel met today.
GOAL #3: LOCAL & GLOBAL COMMUNITY
The Decision and Design Team met with the architect for a turf update on August 25. Next meeting, without the architect, is internally to discuss all considerations for timing and turf installation.
Saturday night on August 29 found me on the 2nd Annual Full Moon Bike Ride on the Lawrence Hopewell Trail. I must say it was a new experience for me. I like to ride my bike but have never done so in the dark. The event was very well attended and we enjoyed the moonlit trails along the six-mile part of the trail.
We have a wonderful program coming up and you'll learn more about it as we get closer. A quartet that is working in conjunction with the Princeton Symphony Orchestra worked with some of our 3rd graders over the summer. The program is called "Signum Quartet's #quartweet Project." As the flyer linked below states:
A #quartweet is a piece of music written for a string quartet that contains 140 notes or less. The number 140 comes from Twitter because in a Twitter post, you can only use up to 140 characters. The Signum Quartet (www.signumquartet.com) is asking people all over the world to compose #quartweets, and submit them on Twitter.
http://www.ltps.org/files/filesystem/Quartweet%20Performance%20Flyer%20w%20SUB%20I.pdf
After an in-district workshop at one of our schools on September 29, the quartet will perform in district during the day on September 30. They will give an evening performance at Lawrence High on October 1 at 7PM. Dan Beal, LES music teacher, connected LTPS with this program.
GOAL #4: FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY
Finance met today.
SUPERINTENDENT GOALS & PDP ACTIVITIES
Since the last Corner, I:
- participated in a round 2 interview,
- led a COA meeting,
- visited multiple schools both before and after students arrived,
- attended a session on mentoring given by Judy,
- attended a HIB training,
- was at Ben Franklin the morning students arrived (since BJ and his secretary are both new to the school), and
- attended agenda setting.
Goal 1: Strategic Plan - no activity on this goal this week.
Goal 2: Evaluation Systems - I worked with the directors on rubric development for different staff categories. I gave the principal and supervisor rubrics a "test drive" during the week of new teacher orientation as I observed administrators conduct PD and facilitate meetings.
Goal 3: NWEA Reading - No activity on this goal this week.
Goal 4: Instructional Rounds - I organized the administrators into instructional teams and will begin conducting rounds with the teams at the end of the month.
Goal 5: Community Participation - I participated in the Full Moon bike ride on August 29.