Schools Out (almost)!!

Oh my gosh – another year has flown by!!

For me, this has been one humdinger of a year! This has been a much bigger job change than I was anticipating, but that’s great, I was ready for ‘different’ and there’s no doubt that I got ‘different’!  (Lesson:  Be careful what you ask for!)  I am so appreciative of the K-6 staff, what a wonderful group of people to start on this adventure into administration – I really mean that, you are awesome!   I have appreciated your patience as I 'learn the ropes' and settle into this new role.  Although we have huge challenges ahead of us, I’m excited because I am confident that pushing through those challenges is going to bring us closer together as a team and we’ll grow and improve as a school.

I’m looking forward to the retirement reception tomorrow evening. I have especially enjoyed spending time visiting with Jane and Marcia about their careers and listening to their stories. It’s also been fun to talk to their colleagues and past administrators to gain more perspective on their careers. These ladies have had great careers that have made wonderful impressions on the lives of lots of children. They will certainly be missed by both staff and students!

I hope you have a great summer ahead of you. I hope you’ll keep in touch over the summer; email me or give me a call or stop by my house if you’re ever out for a drive in the country. I love company! This sprint to the end of year has me very excited to just spend some time relaxing with friends and family. We managed to get Adam graduated and celebrated last weekend. Morgan will have regional track on Friday and Jared (my 22 yr old K-Stater) will be off to Dayton, Ohio on Sunday to spend the summer doing an internship.

I’ll probably post a few blogs over the summer. If you want to be notified when they are posted you need to become a follower of the blog and you’ll get notification when I post something.

MTSS Team -- Just a reminder that we are meeting from 1:00 - 3:00 on Wednesday afternoon.

Becca

Welcome to the last full week of the school year…….

Good morning, I hope your weekend was refreshing.  This has the potential to be a long blog, take some breaks, hang in there with me…….

First of all – this is what the week holds for us:

TUES, May 8

The K-6 Awards Assembly is at 2:30.  I will put a copy of the agenda in your box.

Teacher of the Year Reception at 4:00 to honor Judy Hampel.

WED, May 9

Administrative Council at 4:00.  As far as I know, we will be meeting.  Be sure and get agenda items to your grade level reps.  

THUR, May 10

Kindergarten Graduation/Music Program at 2:45.  (Just FYI, as soon as I am done shaking tiny hands I will be heading to the track meet at Fairfield.)

FRI, May 11

Play Day at 12:30.  If weather.com has any integrity at all it’s going to be a beautiful, partly cloudy, 80-degree day with a 10 mph breeze!

Skyline Carnival at 3:45.  What a fun way to bring closure to a fun day and a great school year! 

SUN, May 13

High School Graduation at 4:00.  This isn’t necessarily a K-6 event, but I want to mention it because it has a lot to do with the great work of K-12 teachers!  I want to slip on my “mom” hat for just a few sentences and tell you how serious I am about that statement.  Adam will graduate on Sunday and of course I am very proud of him, but I am also so impressed and appreciative of all the Skyline teachers and staff who have invested in him.  He is a lucky young man to have had the opportunity to grow up, from birth to high school graduate, as a member of the Skyline family.  It truly takes a village to raise a child; you’ve been an awesome village for him!  So whether you taught him in your classroom, went to at a football game, laughed at his jokes or smiled at him in the hallway – thanks!

Teacher Re-Assignment / Changes

Harmony will be moving from her middle school math/social studies position to join the 5^th/6^th grade PBL team.  We will be interviewing and hiring someone in the near future for the opening this created in the middle school. 

Dani will be leaving Skyline to take a position at Liberty Middle School.  We have appreciated all that Dani has done for our students and wish her the best in her new position.  We are also in the process of interviewing candidates for this position.

RELOCATIONS HAPPENING OVER THE summer…..

We have a lot of people who are moving classrooms over the summer, this is the plan:

The 5^th and 6^th Grade teachers will be moving into Denise’s, Carrie’s, Bjorn’s and Karen’s classrooms.  Denise will continue to work out of that classroom, but will be sharing it with Michael.  Carrie will be moving to where Kris is currently, Bjorn to where Shari is and Karen to where Hannah is.  The reason for this move is to keep the four PBL classrooms in close proximity to each other.  We were highly advised to keep these classrooms together and have seen the benefits to students when they are together. 

ESL is moving downstairs to the small room next to Marla’s classroom.

The virtual school will be located in what is now the ESL classroom upstairs.  Next year we will have a full-time director for the virtual school.  The purpose of this is to expand the virtual school.  Expanding the virtual school has the potential to meet the needs of more students and to bring revenue to the district. 

Patsy will be setting up shop in my old office.  This will give the K-8 resource room much needed additional space and will provide a more isolated place for speech / language services. 

Next Year’s Calendar

I had originally intended to talk about the K-Graduation plan in this week’s blog, I guess I’ll go ahead even though it’s old news by now.  Conversations about ending students’ Kindergarten experience with graduation began (actually resurfaced) in the 2010-11 school year, those conversations included administration, teachers and parents.  I am convinced that dismissing Kindergarten two and one-half days before the 1^st through 11^th graders will NOT have a negative impact on student learning and will align the schedule with what graduation symbolizes.  The number of days for our kindergarteners will still exceeds the number required by KSDE by a very large margin.  This change will give K teachers an opportunity to bring in potential Kindergarteners for the next year for further evaluation and if time permits it could possibly provide them with time to sort and organize student data to prepare for the next year.  Kindergarteners will be coming to school on the day following their graduation to participate in Play Day.  The only possible “con” I see is that child care for families for those two days might be an issue, if we find that’s a problem, we’ll consider that as we plan the 2013/14 school year.     

CHECK OUT

I have dug deep into the “old files” and the most recent check out sheet I can find is one from 1999!  I’ll work on coming up with that, but in the mean time I do know that before you leave for the summer I will need:

•    A list of summer school students.

•    Your supply order.

•    Class splits.

I know there are also some formalities that we need to take care of like classroom inventories, key check in/out, equipment check-in with Sue and computer check in/out.  I’ll ask for some help from Herb and get more checkout information to you later in the week.

MTSS Team

The MTSS Team will be meeting/training on Wednesday, May 16 in the afternoon.  The implementation process will involve learning more and coming up with a plan that will work in our setting with our staff and our students.  Amy Wagoner and Marci Sheardon from ESSDACK will be guiding us through this process.  Amy is a KSDE trained MTSS facilitator.  They will be facilitating the meeting on the 16^th to start the process.  If you have not signed up to be on the team, but would like to, you still can, just let me know.

ASSESSMENT SCORES

I have complete packets of the 3-8 Math and Reading Assessment Results.  These can be checked out from me if you would like to review that data beyond your grade level. 

I warned you from the get-go that this was going to be long and it is, thanks for sticking with it!  I know that last week was not been an easy one.  You are working extra hard, students are acting like they are certainly ready to start summer and you’re trying hard to finish up the school year, you’re preparing for special events and organizing field trips.  Even though it’s a tough time of year and things can get tense, keep in mind that you are a terrific staff, a great team and that Skyline is a pretty special place.

Have a great week!

Becca

Overview of the week......

Good Morning, I hope you had a good weekend.  I’m just going to quickly go over what our week looks like….

Monday, April 30

3^rd and 4^th grade Principal’s Club is rescheduled for today.  I’ll meet those students at lunch.

Tuesday, May 1

OWLS site clean-up after school from 3:45 – 5:00.  Students who attend must be sponsored by a parent or other adult. 

Wednesday, May 2

The 3^rd graders will be having their annual book sale.  This year they will be setting up shop in the extra classroom in North hallway and they will be donating the proceeds to the Pratt County Humane Society. 

Staff Meeting – I’m going to spend most of the staff meeting going over what I see as our vision over the next couple of years.  I really want to end the year with the entire staff having a common understanding of where we headed and what it’s going to involve.  The PDC meeting will follow the staff meeting.

Thursday, May 3

The Yo Yo Assembly will be from 8:30-9:15.  I am not sure which gym we will be in; I’ll get that info to you between now and the assembly.  We are required to sell Yo Yo’s in the front office for one week, but we’ll try to make this as painless as possible for you. 

Next week is when end of the year things will get revved up with K graduation, the awards assembly, play day and the carnival. 

Have a great week!

Becca

Things are moving fast!

BOO - it’s me, the principal!!  Seriously, I hope I haven’t been completely invisible, but I sure don’t feel like I’ve been quite where I need to be the last couple of weeks and have lost some of the pulse that I would like to have on K-6.  I’ve also missed getting a blog posted the last two Mondays, so here we go, better late than never! For the last couple of weeks I’ve been a little distracted with the prom, the testing audit (that got cancelled once we were all ready), the needs assessment and then the National Honor Society banquet came immediately after all that was over and now pre-enrollment for high school has got to get revved up and rolling in order to have a master schedule done in 19 school days – and oh yea, there’s a few graduations to squeeze in!  Regardless of all that clutter on my schedule -- my highest priority and defintely my biggest joy of this new job is to support you in your roll with your students, so be sure and let me know what you need.  As I’ve told you before, when things get crazy I could miss the blatantly obvious, so be sure and communicate with me – spell it out, you won’t offend me by doing so, and we’ll get on the same page a lot quicker. 

I think my favorite part of the last couple of weeks has been the needs assessment that ESSDACK came and did with our staff and students.  Specifically, I loved taking them around to the classrooms and watching you and your students teaching and learning.  As I went from room to room I was honestly just so proud of what was going on in the classrooms and the entire school, it was a great feeling.  I’m going to email you their report; I think it will be a good “road map” as we work toward school improvement.  When you have a chance to look at it I would certainly welcome any comments that you have about it.  We will take a closer look at it at the May faculty meeting.  Another thing to be thinking about for the May faculty meeting is the OWLS area.  We need to consider how that fits into our vision and what needs to be done in order to it to accomplish it’s purpose.      

I think K-6 is DONE with state assessments – YEA!  And here’s how things are stacking up for next week:

• 3
^rd Grade is off to the Cosmosphere on Monday.

• Tuesday is the health screening.
  Thanks to Karen for getting that organized for us.  I’ll probably get my name on the list and get stuck, but I already know the report will say something like “hey sister - you really should eat your veggies and exercise!” …. sounds like a good summer resolution!

• Tuesday is also the PBL Dinner Theatre that they have been working so hard on.
  They will be providing a meal and entertainment to over 200 people!

• Brenda, DeGaye and Karen have worked hard to put the Science Fair together for next Thursday and Friday.
  That’s a great event for our students!

• I’ll be hosting K-2 principal’s club on Thursday and 3
^rd and 4^th on Friday of next week.  

Morgan and I are headed to Manhattan (or as she says, “Manhappiness”) for KSU Open House this afternoon.  I hope you have an awesome weekend!  You are a great staff and I am truly thankful for all of you and the awesome team you form and most of all for the great things you do for our kids!   Thanks!

Becca

There is HOPE in the future!

Today I got the opportunity to listen to some really good speakers at a conference in Salina.  The first thing I learned was that many of our challenges are challenges all over the state, there’s just something comforting about sharing the pain!  My favorite speaker was Diane DeBacker, our Commissioner of Education.  I always appreciate reading and listening to her thoughts, she adds a lot of common sense to the equation.  She explained the waiver proposal that KSDE submitted to the US Department of Education.  I think that plan looks very promising and if it’s approved will provide a framework that empowers educators to do great things for students.  The greatest difference I see is that with QPA, state assessments are at least 50% of what determines our accreditation, with the new plan common assessments would account for 20% of our accreditation at most!  I’ll explain more at the faculty meeting on Wednesday. 

We do have the Yo-Yo assembly scheduled for May 3 from 8:30 – 9:15.  It looks like it will be a fun assembly.  You can see more about what to expect at this website.  http://www.yoyoempire.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3&Itemid=4

We have 4^th, 5^th and 6^th graders taking state assessments this week.  And it looks like K and 1^st grade will be having some Easter Egg hunts, and then we will all enjoy a 4-DAY WEEKEND!  See you at the faculty meeting, I promise to have multiple forms of chocolate!

Becca

"The 12-step chocoholics program: Never be more than 12 steps away from chocolate!"

Terry Moore

  

(I have no idea who Terry is or if he really knows anything -- but I like his philosophy!)

Welcome to the Home Stretch!

I’m not sure what kind of Spring Break gets an educator really revved up for the final seven weeks of the school year; but I sure hope you had that kind of break.  With the exception of a couple of shopping trips to Wichita, we spent this Spring Break at home.  We have managed to get ready for prom and graduation, garden a little, tile a bathroom, plumb a lot, trim trees and haul off about thirty-seven trillion loads of limbs (OK, that’s an exaggeration, but my body thinks its hauled off that many loads!) 

It’ll be great to have Marcia back with us this week.  Sixth grade will be getting their social studies assessments taken care of this week.  The week will wind down with a bang with Jump Rope for Heart after school on Friday.  After this week time is going to pick up and fly!  The next two weeks will be four-day weeks that will include a lot of Kansas Assessments.  Then we will be busy with programs, awards assemblies, science fair, Kindergarten graduation, end-of-the-year field trips, play day and the carnival in addition to planning for next year!  Like I mentioned earlier, I really hope your spring break managed to get you revved up!!

Just an FYI regarding my time… Drew and I are sponsors for the Junior class, so with that comes….. the Prom.  As that time approaches I will probably be pulled in several directions and will take a personal day the Friday before the Prom to work with the students on decorating.  Also, Morgan is a trackster, I will also be leaving early several days to attend her track meets.  Even though I will be busy, I am still very committed to supporting your role in your classrooms, don’t be afraid to let me know what you need!  

Thanks for all you do!!  Have a great week.

Becca

Begin the 5-Day Count Down!

I hope you had a great weekend.  I also hope you got some rest and relaxation since this week starts off with a bang with two twelve hour days!  I hope your conferences go well and provide you with a useful opportunity to partner with parents.  I’ll try to keep my cell phone close during those evenings, if you need something please don’t hesitate to text or call me; whether your need is a cup of coffee or another person to sit in on a conference I would be glad to help you out. 

Please keep Beth W’s mother in your thoughts and prayers this week as she suffered a stroke on Saturday.  Beth will be gone most of the week to be with her.  I’ll be talking to Beth on Monday and will update you with her mom’s condition.

Thank you so much for your hard work at the faculty meeting last week.  You continue to amaze me how you dig into that data and work together to come out with terrific information.  I really do see us doing a lot more of this type of work in the future and I can promise you that the end result will be seen in student achievement.  That type of collaboration where people trust each other enough to be willing to look at strengths and weakness, then collaborate to come up with innovative ways to help all students learn is of great value.   The PDC committee is initiating the use of Professional Learning Communities across the district; this will help us begin to create that type of culture.  All of our efforts, whether it’s MTSS or transitioning to the Common Core will be so much more successful in that environment.

Principal’s club for the K-2 students will be Thursday, 3^rd and 4^th grade principal’s club will be on Friday.

Hang in there; you’re in the home stretch!

Becca

March 5, 2012

Good Morning!  As I look at the week ahead it looks a little on the calm side, that almost scares me!  This evening will be the 1^st and 2^nd grade music program.  (It might not look like calm week to those teachers and Jane until 8:30 this evening!)  I will be gone most of the afternoon attending a meeting at PCC.

Wednesday we have a staff meeting, we will be developing the goals for our school improvement plan at that time.  If you have a preference whether you want to work on the math, reading or school operations goals please let me know; otherwise I will assign you to a team.  (Just FYI, the school operations goal will be focused on implementing MTSS.)  We will use our staff meeting time to divide into teams to write the goals and explore strategies that we will employ to meet those goals.  The goals we write must be SMART GOALS.  SMART GOAL is a buzzword in the world of school improvement.  SMART is an acronym that stands for:

S=Specific

M=Measurable

A=Actionable and Attainable

R=Focused on the learning results, rather than the teaching.

T=Measured and monitored over time.

I’ll have some handouts that will provide you with examples of SMART goals and a template for creating them. 

I am very happy that we have a team of teachers going to the Cognitively Guided Instruction workshop at ESSDACK this summer.  I also have several of you who have indicated you want to attend Common Core workshops.  The CGI team is full, but there is plenty of room for others who want to learn more about Common Core. 

Speaking of learning….. I would encourage all of you to find a blog or RSS feed to follow that will give you little shots of information on topics you are interested in.  If you are new to this type of thing, ESSDACK would be a great place to start, to check out their RSS feeds and blogs go to http://essdack.org/?q=RSSFeeds

This is a neat article that was pulled off of an ESSDACK RSS feed by a staff member --

http://jeffhurtblog.com/2012/01/31/10-brainbased-learning-laws-that-trump-traditional-education/?utm_source=Coming+Attractions+February+9%2C+2012&utm_campaign=ESSDACK%3A+Newsletter+Feb+9th&utm_medium=email

By all means, as you come across neat stuff, feel free to share it with us.

Have a great week and THANKS for all you do for our students!!

The Skyline Elementary/Junior High Middle School will provide a safe and caring community to develop engaged, passionate learners and successful 21^st Century citizens.

Happy Monday!

I hope you all had a great weekend.  I am a little late in getting my blog out to you so I’ll send you a little now and a little more later in the week. 

I am at PCC all day today at Academic Olympics with about 25 high school students.  Thanks for your great work in getting them ready for this competition!

First of all the not-so-great news – I just found out that Cristy Harts is going to be starting a new part time job next week and this is going to cause a change in her schedule at Skyline.  I appreciate so much what Cristy does for us at Skyline, in addition to being a very skilled educator, she has a big heart for kids and makes a huge difference for lots of them. She will continue to be at school in the afternoons on Monday, Wednesday and Thursday and all day on Tuesday and Friday.  Later this week we will need to revise her entire schedule so that we are utilizing her in the places where the needs are greatest.  The good news is that Cristy is still going to be able to spend time with our students, just not as much time. 

The 3rd graders will be kicking off state assessments on Tuesday.

Wednesday afternoon the interview team for the Title I position will be meeting with three candidates.  If you are on that team you can be expecting to get the interview questions early on Tuesday morning.

Friday the 2^nd graders will be off to Dr. Seuss day at the public library. 

Next week at our faculty meeting we will be working on coming up with goals and strategies for our school improvement plan.  I’ll be sending another blog post that explains that process and get some input from you.

Have a great week!

Becca

“The more that you read, the more things you will know. 

The more that you learn, the more places you'll go.”

Dr. Seuss

K Round-Up was Great!

Kindergarten Round-Up was a great day!  We had a full day of visiting with future T-Birds.  I’m not sure what our final count was, but I think it was right around 34.  A huge “thanks” to Jeanette, Karen, Tonie and Joyce for taking care of the planning and all of the people who helped out in that adventure!  I don’t think I have sent out a blog since Karen Wilcox came on board as our new nurse – welcome Karen, we are glad to have you at Skyline! 

I’m looking forward to the Jump Rope for Heart Kick-Off Assembly on Wednesday afternoon.  I always enjoy seeing how enthused our students get about Jump Rope for Heart.  I know they learn a lot about fitness and have fun, but I also know they appreciate the opportunity to help with such a worthwhile cause.  I’m looking forward to dining with K-2 students on Thursday and 3-4 grade students on Friday for principal’s club. 

I completed several evaluations last week.  Over the last few weeks, most of my classroom visits were connected to the formal evaluation process.  I do hope to get back in the routine this week of getting around to your classrooms.  I have been so impressed by what goes on in our classrooms!  I have bragged a lot about the great things I’ve seen.  I really wish you had more time to visit each others classrooms, I think would be a valuable, uplifting experience for everyone.

Making progress in the selection process for the Title I Math and Reading specialist is a high priority for me this week.  If you volunteered to be involved in interviews, I’ll be in touch with you on Monday about finding a day to meet after school. 

As we look to next year, MTSS is on my mind in a big way……. OK, in an overwhelming sort of way!  The more I hear, the more convinced I am that we need to be seriously considering making the leap.  I used to see “MTSS” as a bad word, now I see it as a hopeful strategy.  Lori Meyers, our school Psych, gave us the name of a consultant who might be able to help us gather info about MTSS and what it would look like at Skyline.  I may see if we could have her come to our March faculty meeting; I would appreciate your feedback about what you think of having her come to visit with us and answer questions.  This link will take you to a brochure about MTSS: www.kansasmtss.org/all/MTSS%20Brochure.pdf

Well it’s time to start the week, I do hope you have a great week!

Becca

Looking Ahead.....

First of all – THANKS to all of you for your positive attitude and hard work on Monday at our inservice.  I feel like we are ready to come up with some goals.  We can spend time at a faculty meeting working on that. The first five items below were discussed at Admin Council this week; the last couple are just things that I thought you would want to be aware of. If you have concerns and questions about any of these topics I would encourage you to talk to me and your colleagues who are directly involved.  Whatever does become reality, I hope that it will be a 'big picture plan' that all of us can embrace and support. 

5^th and 6^th GRADE PROJECT BASED LEARNING

Due to the number of students who will be in the 5^th and 6^th grade next year (70), a new teacher will be added to the PBL staff.  Michael Nelson will be leaving his technology coordinator position and taking the PBL teaching position.  He will still take care of the some of the ‘tech stuff’, but his primary job will be teaching math to 5^th and 6^th graders. 

3^rd and 4^th GRADES

Michelle, Carrie and Bjorn are doing some research and forming their opinions on the idea of Michelle and Kristi looping to 4^th grade with these students and Carrie and Bjorn teaching 3^rd grade next year, and looping on to 4^th grade with those students the following year.  At that point we would look at data to determine what kind of impact looping had on student learning.  If it’s a positive impact on how much our students are learning, we may consider doing it again. 

Daily Start/End Times

There is concern about the earliness / lateness of some of the bus routes.  There are discussions about starting school 15 minutes later.  If that were to happen there are lots of unknowns; would we go 15 minutes later in the day, would we add days to the school year, etc….

Rumors

Just be aware, there are lots of rumors circulating among our patrons.  I think the best thing we can do is to just be positive and supportive of our school district and explain that lots of decisions will be made over the next couple of months.

$$$$$$

The amount of money in our Capital Outlay fund (in real-life, I would call this a savings account) has decreased dramatically over the last few years in order for us to keep up with budget cuts.  This means that there will be less of this ‘savings’ to cover building repairs and maintenance.  So the money to take care of our building may have to start coming from the general budget (instruction) if we can’t figure out a way to build those funds back up.  These are, no doubt, tough times in education.  BUT you know the great thing about being old is that I know that we can make it through tough times, we’ve done it before and we’ll do it again!  It will take sacrifices, but it will happen.  There is no reason to think that those sacrifices will diminish the quality of instruction at Skyline. 

www.masteryconnect.com

Most of you are aware of this website that we were getting excited about on Monday afternoon.  If we purchase this web-based software it will provide us with a system that will allow us to keep track of each student's progress towards the common core standards.  The system will get its information from assessments that are provided within the software, or teachers can import their own assessments.  If we go with this you won’t need to develop a checklist; this will provide the checklists, plus a lot more!  I’m sorry if you have already spent time working on your checklist, I didn’t realize this type of product was available yet.

TITLE I, MATH & READING SPECIALIST

We will be hiring a full-time Title I coordinator.  We have received applications from several candidates.  The following people have volunteered to be on the selection committee:  Ruth Ann, Beth, Sue, Carrie, Denise, Joyce and Judy.  We will meet next week to set a date for interviews.

Thanks for being a TERRIFIC staff!!

Friday was quite the day!  This is long blog post – but just that day alone was packed to the brim!!  At about 12:45 a.m. I was finally on my way home and as I had a chance to think and reflect on the day I realized that in spite of how busy, chaotic and at times, stressful, the day I been, I was HAPPY!  And I don’t mean happy because the week was over, I mean I just felt really content and even kind of excited.  At that point I realized that I was either very insane or that I genuinely had a lot to be thankful for.  Well, some people would argue for insanity, but that happiness really came from a thankful heart.  I’ll share with you just a small sample of what I had to be thankful for…..

The graduates who came back for the career fair; that is so awesome and inspiring to hear their stories and see their willingness to give of themselves by coming back and sharing those stories with this generation of students.

The teachers just sort of jumped in and managed students, helped presenters get what they needed, helped clean up, etc.  If there was a base I forgot to cover, they just covered it and went on.  So many people just pitched in and made it work.  Michelle’s creativity and hostess skills turned ordinary into extravagant when it came time for meals and gifts for the presenters.  Michael remained calm and committed as he got us all hooked up with technology.  Rooms were rearranged; tables and chairs set up; the sound was hooked up - lots of efforts by lots of people!     

I felt like the students were great participants at the career fair.  You must have instilled some great manners and respect in them when they were in elementary school!  You could have heard a pin drop as the high school kids listened to Willie give the keynote in the morning, the rest of the day continued like that.  Then came the homecoming dance.  I don’t always put fun and high school dance in the same sentence; but the high school students made this dance fun.  I wish you could have seen them; they had black lights, all sorts of glow jewelry and clothing and even glow balloons.  Everyone appeared to be included and involved, it was probably the most fun dance I’ve sponsored. 

And then there’s the BIGGIE of the day.  This thankfulness resulted from a huge blunder I made when I went into Dillons early Friday morning.  I did not take my phone into the store with me.  You just have to realize; I sort of have a love-hate relationship with my cell phone.  Since I took over as principal I have really tried to make a conscious effort to try to be attached to it 24/7, as opposed to losing it several times a day.  I really have been having it right beside me at night so that if you call and need a sub, it’s there.  I wake up at 6:00 a.m. so that if you call, I’ll be coherent enough to answer and communicate.  So anyway, back to the story….

Because I set my phone down and failed to check my messages, I didn’t know that Joyce had a sick little guy at home and she wouldn’t be able to come to school on Friday.  I was mingling with the career fair presenters in the library, breaking the news that we didn’t have Internet and some rooms didn’t have electricity, when someone came in and said – do you realize that there isn’t an adult in one of the kindergarten rooms.  YIKES (the actual expression that sounded off in my head was not really “yikes”, but lets just go with “yikes”.)  So at this point no Internet and no electricity became rather insignificant!  Stress just mounted as we found out that Joyce had in fact called in for a sub, I had ignored the phone call and every sub in the county was already busy that day!  Not only was it a bad situation, but also it was obvious that it was my fault, I couldn’t even soothe the wound by blaming anyone else!  But you know within minutes, at least four of you had stepped up and said “hey I’m available, I can help out” and eventually Susan and Hannah left their ‘normal’ jobs and subbed in kindergarten that day.  I was so thankful for all of you who were willing help out! 

So I’ve been practicing the death grip on my cell phone this weekend!  In fact when I went to Dillons on Saturday, I had forgot my purse so I had no way to pay for my groceries, but I was just happy that I had my phone!  All I could do was laugh and go home and start over again!   

Oh yea, and I told you last week that I thought I would have a few exciting things to tell you by the time I blogged again.  One was that Vernon and I would only own one house by the next blog post, and YES, we closed on our ‘city’ house on Friday during the homecoming assembly!  Another item of good news that I was expecting to share was that Marcia would be feeling better by now.  She had her surgery on Monday and from what I hear she is encouraged by the results, I’ll try to know more about how she is doing on Monday to share with you.  I also told you that I thought the Skyline family would be one bigger by this week, I was off a week – give me another week on that one! 

I know this post does not include an ounce of information you need for your role as an educator this week!  I’m looking forward to working with you on Monday, I think we are doing some important work and preparing the way for some exciting times.  We’ll be in the library.  We will start the day with a meeting just to get us all on the same page, ready for the day and ready for this final stretch of the school year!

My biggest point of this post is…..

THANKS

so much to all of you, you are very special people!!

Homecoming Week

I’ve had a bittersweet weekend.  One of my aunts who has been very involved in my life, especially when I was a child and young adult, passed away this week.  I’ve spent a lot of time this weekend at her and my uncle’s beautiful ranch in the Flint Hills.  It’s been great to be at the ranch and spend time with family.  I will be going back to Eldorado as soon as school is out on Monday and be gone on Tuesday to attend the funeral. 

On Monday Sue and I will attend the Pratt County Spelling Bee along with all of the finalist from Skyline.  Please have the students meet me in the lobby at 8:40 so they can check in with me and get on the bus.   On Monday we will be welcoming Harmony Harts, our new middle school teacher.  She will be here to take care of paper work and get acquainted and will start teaching very soon after.  Also on Monday, keep Marcia in your thoughts and prayers, as she will be undergoing back surgery. 

Wednesday, all of K-6 will start the day with the Chinese Acrobats.  This should be a very fun and captivating assembly.  We will load the busses at 8:20 and hope to be back at school about 10:00.  Most of you will end the day with the faculty meeting, but the lucky few will have a PDC meeting following that.  The faculty meeting might look a little different that it has in the past.  We are going to watch a video and spend some time talking about it and we’ll be hearing what Bjorn and Carrie learned about the Common Core at recent workshops.  If you have things that you would like to have addressed at the faculty meeting please let me know by the end of the day on Monday.  

On Thursday be sure and tell Denise "Happy Ground Hog Day", if I remember right it's one of her favorite special days!

Friday is the Career Fair for students in grades 7 – 12 and the Winter Homecoming Assembly.  You will probably see lots of extra activity and people around the building throughout the day.  I love having our graduates back, it amazes me how fast the time has flown by between the days when they were little people sitting in the chairs in your classrooms to now when they are doctors, lawyers, teachers, etc.

I’m already excited to write next week’s blog post, by then I bet we will have had an addition to the Skyline family, Marcia will be on the mend and I’ll only own one home, there’s so much to look forward to!