August 27, 2012

On Friday, 45 parents attended the PTO-sponsored Parent-Principal Coffee.  This is the most attendees we have ever had.  The parents who attended overwhelmingly agreed that their students were excited about middle school.  Thank you for all the ways you contribute to this.
Things are already feeling busy, so I am glad that we will have time on Friday to do some catching up and some thinking ahead.
Open House
Open House will be this Wednesday, August 29th, 2012, at 7pm. Parents will follow their student's schedule as they did last year (please do your best to remind your parents and students of this).  Click here for more notes about this event.
Thinking Strategy for September
Connecting to the text is important for students in any subject area. Although the update in the Quick PD section is mainly focused on instruction for Discovery, all student can benefit from this thinking strategy.  Please take some time to read this update and consider how you can implement this strategy in your teaching.
PD Day: 8/31
Friday, 8/31, will be a full day of PD: 8:30am-3:30pm. If you did not participate in any edline.net training this summer, you are in the A Group; if you were able to participate this summer, you are in the B Group.  You will need your laptops for the day; all meetings will be in the cafeteria.  Here is the plan:

• 8:30: Brief Faculty Meeting
• 9:00-11:00
  • The A Group (plus any interested B Group teachers) will participate in edline.net training.
  • The B Group will work together or alone on the following:
    • View an "Adding Students to Classes" video,
    • Work on your calendar, groups, and/or folders, and
    • Post any questions for Jason to answer on a TBD site.
• 11:00-12:00: Lunch
• 12:15-1:15
  • The A Group will work alone or in groups to practice their new traning.
  • The B Group (plus any interested A Group teachers) will meet in the cafeteria to discuss the video and any questions.
• 1:30-3:30: Meet as departments and/or teams to:
  • Practice with edline.net,
  • Review building data (to be shared this week alon with directions, explanations, and expectations), and/or
  • work on team or department business.

Edline.net
Click here to read a blog post I shared with parents on our web site transition.
Due Dates

• Begin implementing Discovery expectations: Tuesday, 9/4
• PDPs are due: Monday, 9/10
• Required staff training sheets are due: Monday, 9/10
• All staff using edline.net's calendar feature: Monday, 9/17 (this is a new date)