Cortland Enlarged City Schools
District Newsletter, October 2022
Superintendent's October Video Blast!
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Cortland Students ROAR!
The Cortland Purple Tigers are learning what it means to ROAR this year. This ROAR may be heard (and seen) through student interactions, during classroom instruction, as students walk the halls, and throughout their daily life at school. ROAR is an acronym that stands for:
Respectful, Open hearted, Always safe, Responsible.
This common language is being used to teach students positive expectations on what it should look and sound like during different settings throughout the school day. Each school has developed this to be age and grade level appropriate and reflected these expectations through a building specific “ROAR matrix.”
From a student’s perspective, the common language and expectations help to clarify how they should behave, interact, and engage in various settings throughout the school day. The work behind this goes much deeper. In 2018, New York State issued an updated set of social-emotional learning (SEL) benchmarks to “enable students to take full advantage of educational opportunities throughout their school experience in grades K-12”. A team of teachers, administrators, social workers, psychologists, and counselors from the District unpacked these standards into specific learning targets for students and determined the most appropriate grade level to teach these standards. They also identified the most critical behavioral skills for all students to know and be able to do at each particular grade level. The ROAR matrix for each building translates these skills into specific actions that can be seen, heard, and taught.
Teams of teachers at each building developed plans for teaching these SEL skills during the opening of school and throughout the school year. This encompasses a broader perspective on student learning to include critical academic and behavioral skills and dispositions. In addition, this common language will help transition students as they progress from one grade to the next and enter new school buildings. Thank you for your ongoing support as we teach all of our Purple Tigers to ROAR!
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Cortland Sophomore Caden Albright has Made His College Decision
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Open Houses Were Awesome!
We were thrilled to host in person Open Houses/Curriculum Nights at all five schools this fall! Teachers were eager to meet families and share information regarding their classes. Students were proud to show off their work and school and families seemed very happy to learn about our schools. We want to thank all of our families who attended our Open Houses and encourage all of our Cortland families to attend our future evening activities this year to stay connected with our school community.
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Phonics Boot Camp at Smith
Smith Intermediate hit the ground running working on decoding phonics skills in September! After analyzing last June’s K-6 phonics assessment data, we realized that we needed to intensively target those foundational decoding skills during the first few weeks of school–with nearly all of our 3rd and 4th graders ("Phonics Boot Camp").
In June and early September we used the data from the decoding assessment to intentionally create intervention groups for all of our 3rd and 4th grade teams that target specific sound-spelling relationships that students needed to work on (also known as “the code”).
Starting on the first Monday of school, our 3rd and 4th teachers, teaching assistants, and interventionists started their daily intervention groups–during our extra 30 minute ELA “Team-Time”–to work on those foundational phonics skills. It was a school-wide undertaking! Smith truly embraced the term “Team-Time”! The team will continue to teach these targeted groups for approximately 2-3 weeks. We will then progress monitor, and adjust groups as needed using the data that we collect.
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Pinwheels for Peace
In today’s world, peace needs to become more than just a word. On September 21, 2022, Barry Primary School took part in an International art and literacy project, Pinwheels for Peace by “planting” pinwheels with messages of peace.
Pinwheels for Peace is an art installation project started in 2005 by two Art teachers, Ann Ayers and Ellen McMillan, of Coconut Creek, Florida, as a way for students to express their feelings about what’s going on in the world and in their lives. In the first year, groups in over 1,325 locations throughout the world were spinning pinwheels on September 21st - there were approximately 500,000 pinwheels spinning throughout the world. At last count, in 2019, over 4.5 million pinwheels were spinning in over 3,500 locations, including the United States, Europe, Asia, Australia, Canada, the Middle East, Africa and South America.
This project is non-political – peace doesn’t necessarily have to be associated with the conflict of war, it can be related to violence/intolerance in our daily lives, to peace of mind. To each of us, peace can take on a different meaning, but, in the end, it all comes down to a simple definition: “a state of calm and serenity, with no anxiety, the absence of violence, freedom from conflict or disagreement among people or groups of people.”
Second graders at Barry Primary School created pinwheels, pinwheels of all shapes and sizes – as part of the creation process, the students decorated and constructed their own pinwheels. On the International Day of Peace they "planted" their pinwheels under the flagpole at Barry School as a public statement and art exhibit/installation.
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Modern Band Under the Stars
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Notes from the Board of Education
The CECSD Board of Education meeting dates and times are posted on the district website and are open to the public and all are welcome. The highlights below include some of the topics that have been discussed at the most recent meetings:
Tiger Paw Recipients.... At the September 13th Board of Education meeting, Heidi Effinger and Devon Tennant were recognized with Tiger Paws for facilitating Therapeutic Crisis Intervention for Schools (TCIS) training. Jennifer Evangelista and Karen Harvey-Stearns were also awarded Tiger Paws for their endless commitment to students during registration prior to the first day of school. At the September 27th meeting, Rhonda Waldbauer was recognized by Jordan Lilley for going above and beyond to make sure all students are safely transported by the correct bus each and every day. Congratulations to all Tiger Paw recipients!
Off to a great start... At the September 27th meeting, the Board enjoyed presentations from all building principals, sharing their update on the start of school. From grades Kindergarten to 12th, students were welcomed with enthusiasm and commitment to high levels of learning for all. Many commented on how nice it was to have everyone back in a setting that seemed to feel “normal” again and how they appreciated all teachers and staff who make it all possible.
BOE Committee meetings.... At each board meeting, at least two sub-committees of the board share reports. A discussion about how to make these meetings more accessible to community members and students continues to be a focus. In the coming weeks, the board will continue dialogue about this and as always, welcomes input from students, parents and staff.
Upcoming presentations …. It’s that time of year again. The budget process begins at the upcoming board meeting where Kris Williamson, Business Administrator, will outline the budget calendar for the academic year. The calendar outlines the different aspects of the budget that will be presented in coming months. The board encourages everyone to view these presentations when they can so that they are well informed when it comes time to vote in May!
The next Board of Education meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, October 18 at 6:30pm in the Kaufman Center (CECSD District Office).