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.