Grateful after Florence

I am so glad we have all come through Florence, mostly unscathed.   I know it is tempting to become frustrated that this interruption creates some challenges with getting up and running with the year and that we may have hours to make up, etc.  Take heart- we'll get there.  My heart goes out to those still dealing with the aftermath. Let it make us grateful for what we have.

As we are still working to align instruction with standards and standards have changed this year, we need to  continue our work unpacking, and notice the verbs in the standards.
Thank you for all of your work utilizing the talent of our CIAs. Thank you for your work in helping them feel a part of your classrooms, and helping them to feel informed about their role in what you are teaching. Below you will see a great example of how Ms. Zimmerman prepares Mrs. Loeffler each Monday for her work in the classroom during the week.

Walker's Birthday Club
Since we have asked parents not to bring in food related birthday items, I am adding to the birthday celebrations by having students who have had a birthday come to the office directly following announcements to have their picture taken with Mrs. Walker or Mr. Lombardo. Thank you to Heather Swift and PTA for providing us with a printer to enable printing these pictures right off for students to take home. We will begin this next Friday and little by little we will call those who have already had birthdays to have their pictures taken as well.

Ice Cream Social/ Parent Info Session tonight:
Hopefully you received the sign up for the Ice Cream Social. Even if you have not signed up, please consider joining with PTA and families as we scoop and enjoy some ice cream with students. It is always a very fun time.

Updates on Dismissal:
Thank you for sending your carpoolers to the cafeteria at 3:40 in order to ensure a timely dismissal. Thank you to our awesome carpool team for creating what I think is the most efficient afternoon carpool. We have parents of some or our Blue and Red tag walkers who are concerned that their students are being dismissed after carpool. We have had our Security Officer, Carliss Williams out to offer any suggestions and to see how our dismissal runs. Area Superintendent Dr. Mark Savage will actually not be able to come out today. However, I would anticipate that he will come out sometime in the near future.

Calibrating Observations
As requested in some of the feedback, Steve and I are working to calibrate our observation data so that we are more consistent and effective in our feedback to you. If you see both of us walking into your classrooms, that is what we are doing.

Mrs. Cho helping Ms. D'Amico's students seeing which strategies will work to find volume

Ms. Layman's class matched up their math vocabulary with another student's definition.

Ms. Bree's students illustrate their thinking in math.

Ms. Zimmerman provides a document like this one for Mrs. Loeffler every Monday.