I find my self perplexed on a regular basis of late when I look at the calendar and find that it's still just the middle of August. Quite strange to now be done with our first full week of school at at this point in the calendar year, don't you think?
And yet, I continue to sense that we're off to a very good start, and that the majority of our students and families are happy (if not genuinely relieved) to be back at Marshall for another school year.
I was standing in the parking lot across the street yesterday, just to keep an eye on our traffic patterns during intake time. It was really nice to watch so many of our families going through their morning drop-off routines together. Such an abundance of kisses and hugs, smiles, and I-love-yous being exchanged. Marshall's not without its share of dysfunction, I know, but we're certainly fortunate to be a part of such a typically friendly, generally loving, and mostly-amiable community nevertheless.
Faculty Meeting
Teachers will meet on the morning of 21 August for our first AM faculty meeting of the school year. We will be be discussing bullying and harassment and the new Galileo program at that time. If you have questions about 301 hours, Classroom Site Fund or Teacher Performance Pay Plan monies, we can dialog some more about these concerns at that time, too. Might be helpful to know your questions in advance if you'd like an answer from me on Thursday. Feel free to email me prior to our meeting.
2-hour Professional Development
Teachers will get together again on Friday, 22 August, for our first two-hour professional development seminar. We will continue our in-service training in Academic Parent Teacher Team meetings at that time. Amy Hanno and Rochelle Bronson, both APTT-trained instructors, will be our facilitators from 1:00-3:00.
Open House (Connect To School Night)
The Parent Involvement Committee met this past Monday to begin planning the logistics for our upcoming APTT-inspired open house night. In an effort to keep you apprised of all that's being planned and prepared for that night, our meeting notes are provided below:
The event will be called Connect To School Night in lieu of Open House and every effort will be made to help parents understand that the purpose of the event will be to create stronger and more advantageous home-school partnerships during initial Parent-Teacher Team Meetings that evening.
The schedule for the evening will be as follows:
5:30-6:15 Primary grades Parent-Teacher Team Meetings in classrooms.
6:30-7:15 Intermediate grades Parent Teacher Team Meetings in classrooms.
There will be NO parent meeting in the gym; Coe will drop in on Team Meetings, as will special area teachers.
Students will not attend Parent-Teacher Team Meetings.
Students will attend childcare in Gym or Fit Kids or Science Lab.
Parents will be asked in advance on several occasions to RSVP for childcare on this Night.
Bianco, Paulsen and Ronn will coordinate childcare.
(Sylvia Johnson has informed me that it is simplest to employ parapros and aides for this work as they have already been fingerprinted and backgrounded.)
Classified staff who participate will complete a separate timesheet for this event and be paid at their regular hourly-rate.
Interpreters will be sought for our SEI classrooms.
Ronn will be available and will attempt to find others to provide this service.
Resources that will be needed for the evening:
A claim-check name-tag system will be used to ensure students are carefully kept track of and picked up by the appropriate person at the end of the Night.
We are in need of someone to procure these tags.
Ronn will attempt to secure Mountain Line bus vouchers for families in need.
Communications prior to the Night:
Coe will develop several send-home flyers and one Marshall Magnet newsletter to deliver to families over the course of the 3-4 weeks prior to the Night.
Robo-calls, announcement TV, Facebook, and the school blog will also be used to convey information about the Night.
We will continue to use our Blue Ticket incentive program to recognize and reward positive behaviors in the common places in our school. All staff, teachers, parapros and support staff alike should be recognizing positive behaviors by distributing Blue Tickets at a rate of 2-3 per day.
Please remember: this program has demonstrated its ability to be of great value to our whole community. It's essential that we continue to implement it every day. Tickets were placed in mailboxes last week. Should you run out, new Blue Tickets are always available in the workroom. Help yourself.
EpiPen
We now have an EpiPen available on site for the treatment of emergency anaphylaxis. It's located in the nurse's office on the wall near the restroom.By way of reminder, we have also had for some time now, a defibrillator on site. It's located in the hallway adjacent to the Cafe-gym-a-torium.
Calendar
Week B
- Monday, 18 August
- Coe @ Admin, 11:00-4:00
- Thursday, 21 August
- Faculty Meeting in the Library, 7:45
- Friday, 22 August
- Safety Committee Meeting, 10:00
- 2-hour Professional Development Seminar (APTT) in the Library, 1:00-3:00
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