August 26, 2013

The March on Washington occurred 50 years ago this week.  I appreciate the synchronicity of recalling Dr. King's words during our Rachel's Challenge assembly immediately before such an anniversary: "Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that."  

Monday's Faculty Meeting: You Choose
Many of you have indicated how you will spend your Fourth Monday Faculty Meeting.  If you have not, click here to do so, please.

Open House will be on Wednesday, August 28th, beginning at 6:30pm.  You can look at the schedule and some notes by clicking here.  Open House is important to our relationships with parents/guardians and is never perfect, so please be flexible, as you always are.  I know you are diligent with what and how you present to parents.

August 30th

• Morning: Friday, August 30th is a district PD day. Dr. Simpson will be sharing information regarding the morning sessions: these will take place at the high school and will involve a deeper consideration of design questions 2-5 from The Art and Science of Teaching.  
• Lunch: You will have lunch on your own (from 11am-12:30pm).
• Faculty Meeting: We will meet as a faculty in the cafeteria from 12:30-1:30pm.  My goal for this meeting is to present a little of our MAP data as a whole and as it relates to our School Improvement Plan.  It will be helpful if you skim the current draft of our SIP by clicking here as I also plan to gather some of your feedback before my final revision and presentation to Dr. Simpson.
• Afternoon: You will have from 1:30-3:30pm to work as departments.  Because there have been some changes with department leaders, I am asking that department leaders e-mail me by clicking here to confirm their leadership role, please.  I will share more information about 8/30 in my response to that e-mail.
• The building closes at 4:30pm.

September's Thinking Strategy

Proficient learners use background knowledge to connect to new information.  You can find more information about September's Thinking Strategy (making connections and building background knowledge) by clicking here.  

Previewing new content is one of our Marzano strategies, the desired effect of which is that students will be able to link prior knowledge to new content.  All of our classrooms will benefit from this month's thinking strategy.

New Information: Field Trips
Faculty must deposit all funds collected from students.  The teachers should complete the deposit slip and document student name, amount paid and cash/check number.  Faculty may not take the cash to pay for any portion of the field trip.  The purchase order for the trip and the bus must be processed prior to the field trip.  Teachers may elect to pay for items/events and turn their receipts in for reimbursement.  We can use the MasterCard to pay for reservations, but only if a purchase order has completely cleared our routing system.

District Benefits Meeting
Generally, we spend an hour at the beginning of each year reviewing benefit updates and information with JoAnn Kite or another central office representative.  This year, we will not have such a meeting.  Much of this information is online; click here to view a PowerPoint presentation about our district benefits and how to access the information online.

Hixson Day at the Ballpark was both fun and hot. I am glad Dr. Miller facilitated this opportunity for our staff and our community.

I will be out of the building Wednesday afternoon to meet with curriculum coordinators and part of Thursday morning for a doctor's appointment. Have a great week!