First, I hope everyone had a great chance to spend a little extra time with their family and friends over spring break. I know that personally I had the chance to take off after last week’s track meet and spend some quality time with my kids and wife. I hope everyone had a chance to relax and get reenergized for the home stretch of the 2012 school year. These next five weeks will be really important to keep our core values in mind when conducting our business.
EVERYONE must be committed to the pursuit of excellence in the next 5 weeks. Even though TCAP tests are finished, we need to keep our focus on preparing our kids for growth and improvement. We will be having our annual spring NWEA testing and our final quarterly assessments. I know on my end, I plan on being in the classrooms a bunch these next few weeks. I am going to miss some meetings or things that can be handled by others. I hope you all understand that my job is to be an instructional leader and I will be doing my best to be in classes. I missed some classroom time with being out of the building and with TCAP assessments. These next five weeks will be vital that our teachers and staff concentrate on quality planning, instruction, and assessments lead to high student achievement for ALL. I truly believe that our staff already knows that spring is just as important as any other time to create an environment for higher student achievement. I am looking forward to seeing all of our staff teach and engage our students.
I would like to congratulate CHS junior Anna Kulp for taking second place at the State Science and Engineering Fair in Fort Collins. Also, Nick Lobato was honorable mention for his outstanding project. Both were awarded a $5,000 scholarship to Adams State College for their knowledge and hard work on their projects. At the same fair, Jasmine Garcia and Genesis Villa combined their talent to take honorable mention. What a great state showing for these students and their mentors. I personally would like to thank Daniel Newmyer and Diego Martinez for taking these students on their spring break to this state competition. These two teachers devote many hours of their personal time for our students at Center Schools, and they show they truly care about our students and the success they have in the future. We have two very talented teachers who show that they really ARE COMMITTED TO THE PURSUIT OF EXCELLENCE! Congratulations to all of you!
The last two weeks we: conducted TCAP tests, while the Juniors took time to prepare for the ACT. Also, the seniors were very busy feeding the less fortunate at La Puente in Alamosa. Also, many of them had the opportunity to job shadow many professionals in the valley.
The week ahead:
Tuesday- is very busy with a bunch of RTI and behavioral meetings. Around all of these meetings I am going to check lesson plans and my plan is to get into classrooms. We host John Mall for baseball and our monthly DAC and BOE meetings are this evening.
Wednesday-I will be in Alamosa for our monthly AD/Principal meetings. After the meeting, some local doctors are giving us a class on concussions.
Thursday-I plan on being in classrooms and checking to see if lesson plans are being taught as intended.