Hello everyone,Well, that was a heck of a week... the symphony field-trip, the fire marshal's visit, kindergarten registration, Parent University... and the superintendent's unexpected resignation, too.
And yet, as always, Marshall has prevailed. Gold stars all-around to those:
- who safely got all of our kids back to the school in the always-chaotic post-symphony mayhem
- who made sure their domain was super-ready for the fire marshal's inspection
- who worked yet another 10+ hour day to be here with smiling faces during our annual kindergarten registration event
- who put every effort into making our very first Parent University meaningful and relevant for the many moms and dads who attended
You're awesome!
Dodgeball!
Sign-ups for our annual Marshall Adult Dodgeball tournament are open and I'm hopeful many of you will arrange yourselves into teams in order to participate. This is our biggest (and most fun) annual fundraiser here at Marshall, and all the proceeds go to supporting and sustaining our magnet programs for another year.If recollection serves, last year's tourney was won by a team anchored by several Marshall staff members, so grudge rematches may be in order.
Go to marshalldodgeball.com to reserve your team's slot (spaces are limited) or, if you can't/won't play, arrange to have your family (or yourself) or a local business sponsor the event.
Fire Marshall
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| He was actually really nice |
I corresponded with him later in the day on Wednesday, right after we had worked to "repair" each of our violations and he has already replied, indicating that he will issue us an official passing score later today when he returns to his office in Phoenix.
Don't forget, we're still honor-bound to fix the following things which, while not violations, were serious safety concerns the marshal noted during his inspection:
- Broken ceiling tiles. If you have broken tiles in your classroom's ceiling, please let Erin or Malinda know so we can create a work order to get them fixed.
- Inside of classroom doors. You may have a few things affixed to the outside of your classroom door, but you must have NOTHING taped to or affixed to the door on the inside of the door.
- Extension cords. If a device is not plugged directly into a wall outlet it must otherwise ONLY be plugged into a working surge-protected power strip. NO EXTENSION CORDS may be used anywhere within the school building.
- Fabric drapes and curtains. Any/all fabric covering your walls, windows, shelves must have proof of fire-proofedness attached (or in your possession) or be treated with fire-retardant spray. Tule-type netting cannot be treated with spray and must be removed IMMEDIATELY
- Evacuation maps. Your map should be affixed to the left or right of your door at eye level. You must indicate on your map your classroom's location ("You are here")and highlight your particular exit route.
Classroom Doors
As to your classroom doors, I believe the district intends to establish some sort of policy soon that addresses the conflicting concerns we all have when it comes to keeping our doors either closed-and-unlocked (for fire safety) or open-and-locked (for lock-down preparedness).
Mr. Kuhn has indicated that we can keep any doors that have attached magnet closure mechanisms which are connected to the fire alarm panel open throughout the school day. Sadly, there are only a couple classroom doors in the building that currently have this feature. I have asked Mr. Kuhn to seek out a bid on our behalf to have all of our classroom doors retrofitted in this matter. However, he believes the cost to do this throughout our school may be quite prohibitive, perhaps in the $90,000 range. Needless to say, FUSD would not be able to fund this upgrade, we'd be on our own should we elect to do it.
Therefore, until such time as a formal policy directive comes to us from on-high, I will hope you will make every effort to comply with the letter-of-the-law in this regard, which is doors closed-and-unlocked. However, it stands to reason that the status of your classroom door may become an area of concern that often escapes my oversight as I am compelled to attend to many other more pressing concerns as I oversee the day-to-day operations at Marshall School.
Grading
Somewhat surprisingly, much progress was made at the most recent Elementary Admin meeting on 17 February in regards to reenvisioning FUSD's purposes for grading and our collective means for delivering updates about student achievement and progress to parents. We've been at this for some five years now, so I was pleased to finally see a few resolutions come out of our last meeting.
My fellow principals and I, along with FUSD directors Knight, Hagstrom, Johnson, and Asst. Sup. Walton have recommended the following for grades 1-5:
Calendar
Week B
Looking ahead...
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Mr. Kuhn has indicated that we can keep any doors that have attached magnet closure mechanisms which are connected to the fire alarm panel open throughout the school day. Sadly, there are only a couple classroom doors in the building that currently have this feature. I have asked Mr. Kuhn to seek out a bid on our behalf to have all of our classroom doors retrofitted in this matter. However, he believes the cost to do this throughout our school may be quite prohibitive, perhaps in the $90,000 range. Needless to say, FUSD would not be able to fund this upgrade, we'd be on our own should we elect to do it.
Therefore, until such time as a formal policy directive comes to us from on-high, I will hope you will make every effort to comply with the letter-of-the-law in this regard, which is doors closed-and-unlocked. However, it stands to reason that the status of your classroom door may become an area of concern that often escapes my oversight as I am compelled to attend to many other more pressing concerns as I oversee the day-to-day operations at Marshall School.
Grading
My fellow principals and I, along with FUSD directors Knight, Hagstrom, Johnson, and Asst. Sup. Walton have recommended the following for grades 1-5:
- that A-F letter grades should no longer be used. We would like FUSD to move to a 1-4 reporting system based on rubics to report on student achievement as a measurement of mastery of the standards. The yet-to-be-finalized reporting rubric would look something like this:
- 4 = Exceeds grade-level standards, consistently meets requirements for exceptional work, demonstrates high level of knowledge and understanding, student is able to teach another student the concept
- 3 = Meets grade-level standards, consistently meets requirements for proficient work, demonstrates acceptable level of knowledge and understanding, student is able to explain to the teacher the concept
- 2 = Approaching grade-level standards, meets some requirements for proficient work, demonstrates some knowledge and understanding, student partially solves problems independently
- 1 = significantly below standards, meets few requirements for proficient work, demonstrates little knowledge and understanding, even with support the student struggles to complete task
- that there be no averaged score for core subject areas, but that instead each discrete standard be evaluated and reported on using the 1-4 rubic score.
- that homework should not be a part of our future standards-based progress reports, that only summative assessments should be considered a part of our reporting on student achievement. Homework should henceforth be recognized only as a part of the Skills and Behaviors that Support Learning portion of the progress report.
- that each of the four grading periods are non-cumulative and not averaged at year's end.
- that percentages should no longer be the means for entering scores in the gradebook
- that Skills and Behaviors that Support Learning continue to be represented by the current E,S,I,N code.
Calendar
Week B
- Monday 29 Feb
- Payday!
- Tuesday 02 Mar
- PTO meeting in the Library, 6:30
- Friday 04 Mar
- END of grading period 3
- B-GDM meeting in the Music room, 7:45
Looking ahead...
- Monday 07 Mar
- FUSD STEM Night at NAU, 5:00-7:30
- Wednesday 09 Mar
- Early release for Parent Teacher Conferences, 11:10
- SACK LUNCH
- Thursday 10 Mar
- Early release for Parent Teacher Conferences, 12:25
- Friday 11 Mar
- Early release for Parent Teacher Conferences, 12:25
- 14-18 Mar
- NO SCHOOL - Spring Break
- Wednesday 23 Mar
- LeFevre 301 Co-teaching workshop, 3:30
- PTO Family Fitness Night, 5:30
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