Thursday, January 6, 2011

Our Character Assembly is scheduled for 8:15 Friday morning.  Plan to come to the gym as soon as possible - Older students on bleachers (if they arrive early enough), younger students on floor.  Don't be afraid to "bunch" your class in a semi-circle on the sides also.  Exiting the gym can be done through east and west doors, expediting your trip back to the classroom.



Did you read the Eric Jensen newsletter highlighted on the side?  Number five looks pretty familiar ........  :)

An interesting thing happened this week.  Did you have some people walk into your classroom to count lights?  Did you have to open the door to let them in?  Good security check.  We are following up on this, but Alloway Electric did not have permission to be in our building checking lights.  I found one man coming out of Jelena's room after interrupting her class.  I will always try to notify you if we are expecting visitors. (Like next week for our safety inspection.)

Next week we will experience the end of first semester.  Teachers are on contract for the morning of the 14th.  Most classified staff have paid their days forward and are not required to be present.  Lisa & I are contracted for the day but may be in Skyward financial training in the afternoon.  Grades need to be posted in Skyward on Friday.  I will print cards either Saturday or Monday in preparation to send home later in week.  We are going to try to advertise that grades will be available on Skyward before we send them home in hopes of encouraging greater Skyward usage.  (This idea is from the Leadership Team)

Box Tops Pay!!!  The PTA received a check for $2,060.20 this week from Box Tops for Education.  Of course that money is put back into student programs via the reading store and literacy events.  Thank you for your encouragement and support of the program.  Also this week, the school received a check from the Idaho Lottery Scratch for Schools for $325.  This was from the wonderful scratching done by Joe, Lisa and Susan!  Thanks team for your "cooperation".

We have another District collaboration January 12th for grade level work focused on continued discussions on grading practices.   Some books, A Repair Kit for Grading: 15 Fixes for Broken Grades were given to Leadership Team reps for each grade.  You may share these books as you wish for now.  We will eventually use them in our work.  Right now they are for your knowledge building and they fit with the CASL studies.  Next week you will meet at the same school as in November; K/first here at Heights, 2/3 at Mill Creek (?) and 4/5 at Purple Sage (?).  Plan to be there by 2:45pm.

During our Leadership Team meeting we set a couple of Core Knowledge Fair staff planning meetings.  The first will be January 26th at 3:00 following collaboration.  Grade level teams need to be prepared to share preliminary plans a the the Jan 26th meeting.  This year's theme is U.S. History. CKF is planned for Thursday evening, March 17th. (Celebrate the luck of the Irish through US History???)