Tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut

The staff at Clay Elementary met in the library this morning in response to the tragedy that happened on Friday, Dec. 14 in Newtown, Connecticut.  The purpose of our meeting was to unite as a staff and believe there is HOPE.  Personally, I didn't have any answers for them today in response to "additional security procedures".  We will be reviewing all procedures tomorrow morning at the District Principal's Meeting.  The agenda is packed with teaching and learning, but I have a feeling it will get scratched to discuss security issues at each building.

As a united staff, we will be resilient and remember that we have a job to do today, a job that anyone of those teachers in CT wish they were doing today...TEACH.  We will make each student feel safe and continue with our lessons as planned.  We have a Code YELLOW drill that we have practiced once this semester and will practice again next semester.

I visited with Officer Handy over the weekend and he reiterated, "Go on as usual".  Last year he helped coordinate a tactile team walk-through of the building to make recommendations about safety of students and staff if a gunman entered the building.  We complied with all their recommendations, one of which was locking the north doors (Kids Klub doors) during school hours.  Officer Handy is also in communication with the district to do future trainings on school shootings.

We will go on today as normal as possible.  If students talk about it or ask questions, we will communicate as much as possible so not to upset other students.  As a teacher, you can sense when to "wrap up" discussions and when to prompt, ask, or seek more questions/comments.  If students need additional support, they will be referred to Mr. Boggess, our school guidance counselor.  We don't know what students know and we don't know how students will react.  Our hope is that parents visited with their children about the tragedy over the weekend.

We are grateful that 445 preschool-5th grade students walked through our doors this morning, except for those who are out sick.  We will love them, protect them, and teach them.  Take care.

Congratulations to our 5th grade students for doing an amazing job on their math tests.  The students learned how to add and subtract fractions with unlike denominators and reduce the answer to the lowest possible number.  The results of the pretest showed zero students proficient.  After 6 weeks of instruction, a Data Team session with the 5th grade teaching team, and hard work by our 5th graders 89% of the 5th graders were proficient!!  The students were very confident in their skills and it showed on the test.  Kudos to the students and teaching staff at Clay Elementary!  

Summer School

What an exciting day!  We have completed day 4 of Summer School and to see the excitement on the students' faces and teachers expressions is priceless.  A soon-to-be-5th grader finds his way into my office after every session to "let me know how things are going" and he is always smiling!

The three summer school teachers joined 10 other staff members in checking out IPADs for the summer.  The technology department has put together a class for the SEP teachers to learn how to use IPADs in the classrooms.  I have heard great reviews about the class.  A big "shout out" to our tech department.  If you have taken the class, please add comments below to let me know what you've learned.

We are still filling positions at the district and school level.  I love being part of interview teams because I enjoy seeing people's excitement when they talk about education.  I always learn from interviews, either from what candidates are saying or what I am thinking.  A random thought...I should put a set of interview questions together for my family and ask them at the dinner table tonight.  Ex:  What strengths do you bring to this family and what could you improve?  I think my 7 year old would enlighten us in her response.  My 1 1/2 year old would simple nod her head and ask for another cookie.  Another question, "How should we handle it when we disagree with a decision?"  Hmmmmmmmmm...this might be fun.

I'm not happy with the professional reading I've done this summer.  That's code for, "I haven't read any professional books, yet."  I carry plenty of books in my bag (7 to be exact) because one of these days I will be ready to read.  I always make that promise, "I am not buying anymore books until I have these read!"  It never works.  In fact, I have an unopened box of books on the table at home that I ordered from Amazon, but I think they are the books I ordered to give the teachers at the first teacher's meeting.  I need to get the teachers excited about returning to school and some door prizes (and food) should do the trick.

Happy Tuesday!

Instructional Rounds

I'm enjoying my day with members of the SEP Administrative Team learning about Instructional Rounds.  We've been listening to Dr. Richard Elmore and a panel of educators:  Community College (curriculum director), Waukee (director of professional development), Forest City (superintendent).  Soon we will be able to work within our group to see what "Instructional Rounds" will look like in the future at SEP.  We will begin reading Instructional Rounds in Education tonight!  The conference has been so good that I haven't had a chance to look outside to see what the weather is doing (raining?).

Mission, Vision, Goals & Preschool Site Visit

We had a great session yesterday as we began the process of developing a new mission, vision, and goals for SEP.  It was hard to "work" on a Sunday, especially since the Brocos vs. Steelers game  and women's basketball was on TV, but all the work was well worth our time and effort!  The cool thing is that everyone from the administrative team was in attendance along with the Board of Education.  It's so good to get a chance to work with the board.  I appreciate the time the board gives to the students and staff at SEP.

Now, we begin our first full week back after winter break and it's a BIG day for our preschool programs.  The Department of Education will be conducting their site visit at SEP beginning today through Wednesday.  I am confident of our staff and program and believe the DE will see many good things at Clay Elementary and SEP.  Also, I look forward to hearing what changes/improvements we can make to our program.  Change is always good! :)

Happy Monday...It's Jan. 9th and no snow on the ground in Iowa.