Updates - 20 November 2012

Hello everyone,

I hope you have a great long holiday weekend and that you're able to find plenty of time to spend with your loved ones.

Mac computer stuff
If you're having any of the following issues with your Mac laptop, you should give Ted Grudniewski a call (ext. 6301).  He can fix stuff while-you-wait, over the phone like:

• failure to accept your log-in when rebooting or starting up
• failure to allow access to websites like YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter
• unable to view images on blogs like marshallbluenote.blogspot.com or marshallmagnetschool.com
• M86 'Access Denied' screen for appropriate websites

Calendar

• Monday, 26 Nov.
• Coe @ plastic surgery - Ballard has the helm
• Thursday, 29 Nov.
• Faculty meeting in the Library, 7:45

Tax Credit

Thanks for passing out the Tax Credit flyers so that they can be taken home by your students today.  

Please remind your family members over the weekend that any taxpayer in Arizona may contribute any amount (up to $400 per couple, $200 per individual, natch) to any school in Arizona and that we'd be super grateful to them if they'd choose to contribute to us.

Please acknowledge that you read this post.

Your new lounge

Hello everyone,

Welcome to your new Faculty Lounge!

Thanks to the FUSD maintenance department (who got the job done fast!),
super-generous contributions from the awesome Marshall PTO,
as well as some financial assistance from retired Marshall teacher, Linda Evans,
Marshall-dad, Vince Martinez', very impressive furniture-assembly skills,
and the tireless coordinating efforts of Janelle Reasor and her husband Marc, who transported all the big stuff from Sam's Club in his box truck,

we now have a real-live, lovely Faculty Lounge at our school!

I hope you really enjoy it.

Together.

Thanks again to everyone who helped pull this project together in record-time.

Updates - 16 November 2012

Hello everyone,

I hope you have a nice weekend.

Calendar

• Monday, 19 Nov.
• Coe @ Admin Council meeting, 1:00-4:00
• Wednesday, 21 Nov.
• No School - Thanksgiving holiday
• Thursday, 22 Nov.
• No School - Thanksgiving holiday
• Friday, 23 Nov.
• No School - Thanksgiving holiday
• Monday, 26 Nov.
• Coe @ plastic surgery (seriously) - Ballard has the helm

That is all.

Updates - 09 November 2012

Hello Zane Hulls!

Hello everyone,

Happy Trifecta (Friday-Three-day-weekend-Payday) Day!

I will be out of the building on Wednesday, 14 November, to visit a Reggio Emilia School in Paradise Valley along with some of our teachers, Kathy Brown, and a group from NAU.  I continue to be so happy with the dedicated and deliberate efforts our Reggio team is making to incorporate this fascinating approach to early childhood education into Marshall School.  It aligns extremely well with our magnet emphases, our mission and vision, and likewise promises to be of great benefit to our students, too.

Along similar lines of thought, Diana Laufenberg is a former FUSD educator who now teaches at a unique arts-and-sciences school Philadelphia.  She also remains a good friend to some of you.  Diana visited our campus the other day and I had a chance to meet her and learn that (much to my great envy) she had a chance, not to long ago, to speak at a TED conference.  Her talk covers a lot of ground related to the current climate in public education.  And she makes some fine points about our nation's current "infatuation with the culture of one right answer that can be properly bubbled on the average multiple choice test."

I hope you'll take a moment to watch her talk.


Family Involvement Plan
Please review the Revised Family Involvement Plan and the Marshall Parent Compact. As a School Improvement Committee we have already made some revisions to these documents. Now, subsequently as a school, we must ask you to review them and, following that, I will then submit them to Educational Enrichment before 20 Nov.  If you, as a member of the faculty or staff, would like to suggest changes, revisions, improvements, etc. to these documents, please provide them to me before Thursday morning, 15 Nov. in hopes that we will have this process completed well in advance of our deadline.

Centro Educativo Amauta
One of our Marshall parents, Eduardo Tapia Castro, visited with me a few days ago to tell me about the school he and his family helped to found in his native Ecuador.  Like Marshall, the school, Centro Educativo Amauta, is a unique, child-centered learning place wherein students are given many opportunities to learn via the arts and sciences.  He would be interested in helping classrooms and grade levels at our school to begin to develop a relationship with theirs.  Students from preschool through middle school attend Amauta.  If you're interested in corresponding with students at Amauta, please let me know and I will put you in touch with Eduardo.

Calendar

• Monday, 12, Nov.
• NO SCHOOL - Veterans Day
• Wednesday, 14 Nov.
• Coe in PHX -- Ballard has the helm
• Thursday, 15 Nov.
• Faculty Meeting in the Library, 7:45 AM
• Kindergarten Family Night, 5:30 PM
• Friday, 16 Nov.
• Taiko Assembly, 9:00 (location to be announced)
• Saturday, 17 Nov.
• Taiko Performance at Coconino High School, 11:30

Somebody's missing the point...

The other day when I wrote to you in an email,

"Please, (Oh my heavens, PLEASE!) STOP propping the doors open with ROCKS. It’s dangerous and exposes us unnecessarily to liability on so many different levels. Take your keys with you when you go out, or walk the long way around to the front doors which are to be the ONLY doors that should be open/unlocked during the day..."

I think maybe I was just a little unclear.

My point was not to emphasize the rocks, per se, but rather to discourage everyone from propping open exterior doors.  Any doors.  With any thing.

So, just to be clear.  Propping doors open with trashcans and/or little-tiny rocks.

Still a problem.

Capish?

Updates -- 02 November 2012

Hello everyone,

Well, it's Friday.  That's always nice.

Sorry to have been such a harpy this week about rocks and duties and such.  I hope, however, that you will do your best to try to understand that what I've asked of you in this regard is not intended to further complicate your professional lives but only to make our students and staff safer.

In that vein, I'd like to gently remind you to please keep your students under your watchful care and supervision at all times.  Most especially, please don't ever leave them alone.  If you are working with an individual student, or small group of students, during recess, or at any other time, and you need to step out of the room briefly to use the restroom or something, please ask your neighbor to keep an eye on your student(s) for you.  I know it's an additional hassle, but it only takes a couple seconds to walk them down the hall, or to ask someone who's available to step into your room for a minute or two.  And frankly, as I see it, it's our duty to make sure our students are supervised at all times. The bottom line is simple: please be vigilant in ensuring that we are not negligent at any time in overseeing the safety and well-being of our students. Thanks.

Mustang Gallop
Our students raised over $18, 000 during the Gallop jog-a-thon this year!  Congrats to the following classes and students for their efforts:

• Most Money Raised - classroom: $1,467.94 (Grant)
• Most Money Raised - student: Kaitlyn D. (Shaw)
• Spirit Award - classroom: Fighting Cacti (Fisher/Kohl)
• Most participation - classroom : 79% (Burgoon)

Calendar

• Monday, 05 Nov.
• Coe @ Admin Council 1:00-4:00 - Ballard has the helm
• Wednesday, 07 Nov.
• Coe @ ASA Law Conference in PHX - Ballard has the helm
• Thursday, 08 Nov.
• Exploration Stations 6:00-8:00 PM

Please acknowledge that your read this post.