FRIDAY FOCUS
January 18, 2013
WHAT 'YA NEED TO KNOW...
•1/21 Martin Luther King Day
•1/22 MAP testing begins-Be sure to check the time when you are scheduled to assess. Let Ms. White know if you need to make any changes. I appreciate how all of you always encourage your students to do their best and actively proctor during the assessments!! (<:
•1/22-1/24-FYI, I will be off campus at a training. Susan Johnson (and Becky Gauthier) will be your Administrator's in Charge. Please try and handle the smaller things in your classroom and save the big issues for Susan and Becky! (<:
•1/24- Voice Thread training by our very own Angie Tremble. The training will be at 3:00 right here at SSF! If you are a 1:1 device classroom-this training is essential to our next steps and you need to make every effort to attend.
•Angie is also arranging for grade levels to have "sharing days" with like grade levels from the other sites. These have been very well received and beneficial in the past. It is a great way to network with the other sites and hear what they are doing-equally important, if not more important, it is a great way for us to provide leadership (and support to Angie) and share the MANY great things that we are doing at SSF. (<: Please see the bulletin for the specific grade level dates.
•1/24-District/Administrator Walk-Through is postponed-I will let you know the new date-Thanks to Katie for being so flexible and working around my calendar!
•School Tours-It's that time of year already...Parents have begun requesting tours to find out more about our school before Spring Registration. We try and do the tours on Tuesday mornings, but that is not always possible. If we pop into your room-do NOT feel as if you need to stop what you are doing. We will only stay for a few minutes and we will try not to be too disruptive.
A DROP IN THE BUCKET...
•A BIG Hooray to the Student Council for their outstanding efforts planning our Kindness Week! I think it has been a fabulous way to kick off the new year!
•Lots of Thank You's to Robyn Hubbard for all of her assistance with some of our disciplinary issues and a couple of tough Special Ed. cases! Robyn, You Rock!!
•Kudos to Dr. Nancy Lynch for going out to the sites and doing an excellent presentation on Bullying to our parents. She will be at SSF on February 12 at 8:45 AM-during the PTO meeting. A few of our parents have attended her evening presentations at the other site(s) and have been most impressed! Please include this information in your newsletters. I would like to add that Dr. Lynch was most helpful and supportive as we dealt with a cyber-bullying issue here at SSF! Thank You!
•Congratulations to Cara who has been invited to attend the STAR writing committee once again! Go get 'em Cara! Thanks for representing all of us in Sacramento this week! We know it is a huge commitment!
•Thank You, Thank You to Carlos Estrella for meeting with me this week and reviewing our FFL budget. The good news is that we found some $$$! YAHOO!! This money will come in handy as we develop our budget and determine our Pledge Drive goals.
•YEAH!! it appears that our wireless/connectivity issues have been resolved in the upper grade hallway. I know it was frustrating for all-thank you so much to the Tech Dept. for their efforts and thank you to the upper grade team for the patience and for their diligence in working with tech to help diagnose the issues! Gotta love teamwork!
•Gotta' love the clever folks out there...Thank You Lisa Owen for suggesting a new name for our "staff development" portion of our Friday Focus. "The Flip Side" just wasn't appropriate since we went to the S'more paperless format. See below...
...AND THEN THERE'S S'MORE...
•Check out this great resource from Angie Tremble. It is an e-book from Amazon-but you can view a great synopsis if you click on the "Click to Look Inside" button once on the Amazon Site. You can also download the book in it's entirety for only 1.99! Click below:
Many of our teachers are experimenting with various ways to "Flip the Classroom" to maximize instructional time and make homework meaningful and engaging. If you've been wondering what The Flipped Classroom is and how it might work for you-this is a great resource!