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| Mr. Billy Weldon |
Dead cat.
Burst pipes. Broken water heater.
Jammed copier.
Snow. Ice. Cold.
Burnt corn-dogs. Busted vent fans. Fire alarm.
Jammed copier.
"Heaters" blowing frigid air.
Construction fences. Yellow caution tape.
Arizona Daily Sun Person Of The Year!
Jammed copier.
Just another week at Marshall.
Welcome back!
As always, thanks for hanging-in and rolling with the punches. That's what we do (and, doggoneit, we do it so well).
I've got seven good fingers (and a thumb) to type with. Sounds like enough, but it's not. Therefore, I am going to do what I can to try to be brief and thereby minimize my interactions with my keyboard this week.
Tax Credit
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We've just completed our most-recent round of fund-raising for the 2014 tax-season and I am pleased to report that we collected about $38,000 in contributions, somewhat down from last year's record, but one of our best years in recent memory nevertheless. My thanks to everyone on staff who donated and, likewise, made an effort to communicate this important message to parents, friends, and distant relations. The list of staff members who participated by making their tax credit donation to our school is long, but the list of parents and mysterious strangers who donated is even longer. Well done.
By-the-by, if you're not making your tax credit contribution to the school, I understand, it's kinda confusing. But if you're not making your donation to the school because you don't fully grasp what a tax credit is and does, please stop by and I will be happy to explain it. I am confident I can help you see how making this donation to our school will work to your advantage and ours.
Under construction
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When the project is concluded in the next few weeks, it's my hope that we will have a newly graded and leveled play-field as well as shaded outdoor meeting spaces and rest areas in addition to the new 200' solar array.
Grades and grading
Elementary principals have long been discussing grades and the grading process and have just completed a book study of On Your Mark: Challenging the conventions of grading and reporting written by Thomas Guskey. I have a sense that how we grade, what we assess,and the means we employ for reporting student progress and growth to parents may soon become a topic for the district at large as we head evermore in the direction of standards-based grading.
In this vein, we admins have also spent some time looking at Higley Unified's board-approved Assessment & Grading Handbook.
I encourage you to have a look at these resources. Each has merit in helping us ponder and reconsider many of our longstanding assumptions and practices related to grading.
As a starting point, I'd like to encourage you to complete this short survey about grading which I've created to help us as individuals and as a faculty reflect on what we're doing and thinking as it pertains to grading and assessment.
Calendar
Week A
- Monday, 12 Jan.
- Coe at Admin, 11:00-4:00
- Tuesday, 13 Jan.
- Site Council (Parent Involvement Committee will report), 5:00-6:00
- Wednesday, 14 Jan.
- Coe at Expulsion/Suspension seminar, 1:30-4:00
- Thursday, 15 Jan.
- Faculty meeting, 7:45, CANCELED
- Coe off AM-shift only (ortho-surgeon appointment)
- Coe at elementary prep time meeting, 4:00-6:00
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