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