au courant

April 4, 2015

Staffing Update

Staffing Update

Congratulations to Marica McWhinnie who is the new Assistant Principal at Terrace Ridge School for the fall of 2016.


We will sure miss your expertise and your fun, happy energy at JS next year, Marica!

Crossing Guards

Do you know someone who might volunteer in the crosswalk? We haven't been able to find any volunteers for crossing guards. In the meantime...


Thankfully Heidi has agreed to keep our kids safe through the crosswalk again. If you can help out by taking a shift on Fridays or taking the crosswalk in the mornings, please let me know. This is paid time.

Friday is a CRM Day

On CRM days, support staff do not have to attend. However, teachers should feel free to invite any EAs to the CRM meetings if they work directly on literacy with the students you are discussing at your CRM meeting. If you're not sure, chat with Karen or me.


9:00 - Grade 3

9:45 - Grade 2

10:30 - Grade 1

11:15 - French Immersion

1:00 – Kindergarten

2:00 – Daily 5 Cohort Meeting

2:00 – Intervention Team Meeting

Cheer Club

Cheer Club

Thank you for running a club for JSM, Tanya and Chandra! And for getting the schedule out so well in advance for all the classes.

Behavior should be treated like academics, and students should be taught the skills they need to execute desired behaviors.

Kids who misbehave or mishandle a situation aren’t automatically punished or sent out of the classroom. Instead, teachers are taught to show empathy, connect with students and reinforce social skills.


Erin Green, Director of National Training at Boys Town


http://www.weareteachers.com/blogs/post/2014/02/18/building-a-positive-school-culture

These resources offer a great many ideas - for behavioural interventions -

~ Looking for Literacy at JSM ~

Elbow to Elbow from LS?

Learning Services has been providing tremendous financial support for the Daily 5 cohort and for new resources. At the December meeting, they also said they would provide elbow to elbow support and/or any other supports teachers would like. As far as I know, Kacey is still working on bringing Lise May in for a PD session which will then be followed up by individual sessions to support implementation.
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Uploading PGP's to Docushare

Support Staff are invited to a short session at 3:30 Tuesday, April 12 to learn how to upload PGP's and evaluations to your HR staff collections. I will send out a location later this week.

Refugees

JSM has two students from Syria (from the same family). A couple times we thought we were getting a second family, but the plans fell through each time. There is now a Wolf Creek protocol to follow when Syrian students do arrive. See below.
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EA Evaluations

EA Evaluations

This week I will start connecting with the new EAs (ie., all who were hired this year) as to the schedule for evaluations.
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Speaking of evaluations...

Speaking of evaluations...

My LPI closes on Friday. I sent it out to 45/70 people. If you did not receive a request from me, but would like the opportunity to provide feedback, just let me know, and I will get you added on. Also, please keep in mind you are welcome to speak with me in person if you prefer not to do the online survey. :)

Dog Committee

I've been approached by a few people at different times to have a therapy dog at our school. This will require quite a bit of preliminary work and investigation - including determining how much support is in the building for having a therapy dog.


I've been informed we should start with the admin procedure for service dogs, and given a number of questions from Stuart Elle of OH & S. Please let me know asap if you want to be part of this process.

Support Staff Handbook Committee

Support Staff Handbook Committee

I was thinking it would be really helpful to have a little handbook for support staff - especially for when new members are hired. We have one, but it's pretty outdated.


I am hoping a group of support staff members would be willing to create a new handbook. We should have representation from both veteran and new staff. It should not require more than a couple meetings. Please let me know if you are interested in contributing to this project (don't worry about your flex time).

Year end par-tay committee

Year end par-tay committee

With staff members leaving at the end of the year (Jan, Amy and Marica), we need to have a going away party plan that celebrates birth, retirement, and promotion. We hope to have our traditional breakfast at the golf course, in which case the committee just needs to plan the decorations and dress theme. Let me know if you want to get your party planner on.
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Toilet Issues (or, thank you Betty and Kaye for repeatedly and patiently unclogging!)

I don't know the solution, but we might need to think outside the box on this problem. Just like the caretaker who had issues with girls drawing on the bathroom mirrors with lipstick. He put an end to that behaviour the day the girls watched him dip his mop in the toilet then use it to wash the mirrors...


Any ideas?

On the Horizon...

  • It's time to make a class size request for next year. This is where we fill out a form showing our class sizes depending upon the number of teachers we have. Keep your fingers crossed.


  • I told you I'd update you after our March 23 admin meeting; we didn't get much in the way of specifics. As of today, I've been called to a meeting on Monday afternoon to get details.


  • At this point in time, our kindergarten numbers for the fall are way down from this time last year according to Sophie. I don't know if that is due to something simple (like the fact we didn't start registrations as early as usual), or if we should actually be expecting fewer K programs next year.

  • Let me know if you want a change in assignment for the 2016-17 school year. This goes for both support staff and certificated staff members.

Induction - April 28

Induction - April 28

Amy Womacks

Lindsay Fader

Craig Fullarton

Nesta Morris

Beth Boyd

The date: April 28, 2016

The venue: Lacombe Golf and Country Club

The time: 5:00 cocktails, 6:00 supper, induction ceremony to follow
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March Reading Scores

Teachers of Grades One, Two and Three, please send me your Feb/March Fountas and Pinnell scores for both decoding and comprehension. Please remember the actual F and P kits are to be used exclusively to gather this summative data. Other kits can be used for any other purposes by teachers, but F and P data is required for summative assessment (ie., reporting) periods.


I need these lists by Friday, April 8 please.

Message from Cheryl Gascoyne...

The Words Their Way resources have begum to arrive and we are currently processing the order. Some of the materials are on back order, and are anticipated to arrive in separate shipments over the next couple of weeks.


As soon as we have each school's order together we will get the materials to you.


If you have any questions please give me a call or e-mail.