Superintendent Update
Caldwell Parish Schools
Greetings Team Caldwell!
WOW! What a whirlwind of a month! October always feels so jam-packed with football, pumpkins, Homecoming festivities, Halloween and Red Ribbon Week fun! It's such an exciting month, but exhausting at the same time. I hope you all know how much we appreciate your commitment to making sure your students receive the best educational experience in AND out of the classroom.
Thankfully, we are seeing a decline in the number of COVID cases in our community. This, along with our board's decision to implement the Parent Choice Option, ensures that our students are able to be in our classrooms where we know they have the best opportunity to learn. We've got a lot of ground to cover and many gaps to fill due to this pandemic, but I am encouraged by the reports that I hear from our school and district leaders. It sounds like our literacy initiatives and expanded work with ANET, along with our Teach Like a PIRATE book study will definitely pay off in the end.
I am looking forward to my November school visits! I can't wait to check out these exciting lessons I'm hearing about and see just what our students are learning!
Thanks for all you do for the students of Caldwell Parish!
Nicki McCann, Superintendent
Teacher Spotlights
Early Childhood Spotlight
Elementary Spotlight
CES 3rd graders design and create sea walls out of clay. They are predicting which sea wall design is the best protection against storm surge from hurricanes. R. Cooper 3rd Grade Science
Secondary Spotlight
Welcome to Velita Griffin’s classroom as the students perform a talk show to discuss “Flowers for Algernon.” Students came up with the questions that their guests had to answer. There was a student acting as the talk show host also.
Velita Griffins's 8th grade ELA class
CTE Spotlight
Students in Mrs. Nikki Stephens’ Digital Media class practice using new skills learned in Adobe Photoshop. They are working with Liquify which can adjust facial features and background blurring. Pictures at the end are finished products from earlier in the year.
Student Support
Ms., Dannehl’s class has been working hard on positive and negative numbers and explaining their thinking.
LITERACY SPOTLIGHT
Teachers at Columbia Elementary, along with Mrs. Adams, are discussing and planning ways to improve reading lessons to meet our students' reading needs based on our literacy data.
Technology Tips for Teachers
Linewize Filtering
Users must login to Google accounts in the Chrome browser in order to access other sites online. If you are already logged in but cannot access sites, be sure that your account is set to sync. Click your user avatar at top right in the browser, and turn sync on if it is paused. If you are not logged in at all, you can use this link, then “login to network” to take you directly to the Login to Google button. http://login.linewize.net/
It may be helpful to add a desktop shortcut to this link. And, if you have no activity for a while in your browser, you may have to log back in if sync is not enabled.
CPSB YouTube
CPSB Youtube is linked near the bottom of the new district website. Here is the direct link: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmN0H96jk9FzBbHXwc--3zg
New Teacher Corner
Looking for a Teacher Certification Program?
Social Emotional Tips for Teachers & Staff
Looking for Support? There’s an app for that!
Through funding from the Governor’s Emergency Education Relief Fund (GEER), the Louisiana Department of Education and Ochsner Health are launching a new virtual therapy program to help make mental health services more convenient and accessible for educators.
This program provides virtual therapy visits through Ochsner Anywhere Care to Louisiana early childcare center workers and public school teachers, administrators and support staff. This includes employees of early child care centers that serve children from birth to age four as well as employees of all K-12 schools and systems, including charter schools.
Ochsner Anywhere Care is a secure virtual visit tool offering appointments with licensed psychologists or therapists through your smartphone, tablet or personal computer—so you can get care where and when you need it!
Student Life
Elementary 2021 Football Championship Games
Oct. 26th:
Columbia vs Grayson at 6:00Union Central vs winner of Columbia/Grayson at 7:00
Parent Information
COVID Concerns-Parent Choice Option
Guidance issued by the Louisiana Department of Education on September 29, 2021 gave school systems the discretion to implement a Parent Choice option for quarantine determination.
At the October 14th school board meeting, members of the Caldwell Parish School Board approved new procedures beginning Friday, October 15, 2021 stating that mandatory quarantines for students/employees defined as “close contact” during the school day or during a school function are no longer required. These new guidelines only apply if the individual identified as a close contact is not symptomatic.
A copy of the new procedures can be accessed at this link: CPSD Employee/Student Quarantine Options for Exposure to COVID-19 or by visiting our district website at www.caldwelledu.org.
The Caldwell Parish Schools Operational Plan for 2021-2022 can be accessed here: https://4.files.edl.io/bc86/07/21/21/140723-b001781f-7be0-4bf7-94cc-5e70bfe88aed.pdf
Caldwell Parish School District
Email: nmccann@caldwelledu.org
Website: www.caldwelledu.org
Location: 7112 U.S. 165, Columbia, LA, USA
Phone: 3186492689
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CaldwellParishSchoolDistrict