Hello again-
I hope everyone had a great summer. I hope it was relaxing and energizing for everyone (staff, students, and parents). I personally enjoyed the summer and spending time with my family. I put back on my old baseball cleats and coaching hat for the summer to volunteer for my boys’ baseball team. It felt good to be back on the field and it brought back many fond memories for me. It was also great to give back to the community, but the best part of the job was explaining baserunning to our team and hitting ground balls and line drives to my wife (assistance coach) ha ha. After spending this summer working on the fundamentals of baseball, it occurred to me that so many things in life are about doing things correctly. For example getting back to the fundamentals of teaching, in other words good teaching is just good teaching. Our plan for 2012-2013 will be to continue to work on the basic fundamentals! Our district leadership team (DLT) has simplified our core values from 6 to 4 with the intentions of concentrating on the fundamentals of teaching and learning.
I hope everyone had a great summer. I hope it was relaxing and energizing for everyone (staff, students, and parents). I personally enjoyed the summer and spending time with my family. I put back on my old baseball cleats and coaching hat for the summer to volunteer for my boys’ baseball team. It felt good to be back on the field and it brought back many fond memories for me. It was also great to give back to the community, but the best part of the job was explaining baserunning to our team and hitting ground balls and line drives to my wife (assistance coach) ha ha. After spending this summer working on the fundamentals of baseball, it occurred to me that so many things in life are about doing things correctly. For example getting back to the fundamentals of teaching, in other words good teaching is just good teaching. Our plan for 2012-2013 will be to continue to work on the basic fundamentals! Our district leadership team (DLT) has simplified our core values from 6 to 4 with the intentions of concentrating on the fundamentals of teaching and learning.
Core Beliefs
2012-2013
1. Our purpose is to increase academic achievement for ALL students
2. With our support ALL children can achieve at high levels and be successful in life
3. Quality planning, instruction, and assessments lead to high achievement for ALL students
4. EVERYONE must be committed to excellence in ALL they do EVERY day.
Over the next 36 weeks we will implement these core values into all aspects of our education. My hope is that we (teachers, students, parents, administration, staff, community members) can all work together to implement these core beliefs for our students at Center High School.
Since my last communication:
In June, Katrina Ruggles, Carrie Zimmerman, Linda Donaldson, Joy Werner, and I attended “Thinking Strategies” workshop at Adams State University. In July, I attended the monthly board meeting. I was also in attendance at the CASE (Colorado Association of School Executives) conference with many of my colleagues. Along with Katrina Ruggles and George Welsh, we (mostly Katrina) presented data on the creditable strategies CHS is using to increase our graduation rate. George impressed many folks throughout the state with his Race to the Top initiative. I was proud to attend the open house for our new school with approximately 200 other people. What an awesome school we have. A big thank you goes out to Mr. Welsh and Michael Lobato and everyone that put in extra time and their hard work, and efforts into getting us this great new campus. OUR school has been talked about throughout the state of Colorado (believe me I heard it in Denver this week). Monday I started back up full time. I spent Monday and Tuesday in my office preparing for the upcoming school year. The remainder of the week was spent in Denver for a CHSAA All Schools Summit meetings, while there we conducted our first SPL meeting, I worked out of my hotel answering e-mails and participating in a CDE webinar.
The week ahead:
I have cut and copied Mr. Welsh’s e-mail of our schedule for this week.
All teaching staff will be trained in Kagan student engagement techniques on Monday August 6 through Wednesday August 8. This training will take place at Adams State University.
Thursday August 9th is NOT a contract work day. However, it is being offered as one of the options for people who need to take Promethean board training to do so.
The full Promethean training schedule of options is as follows:
· On August 2nd a half day Promethean “Boot Camp” with the basic survival overview to begin the year will be offered. This would be for MS/HS teachers (some have already have been trained and only if there is an interest in doing so.
· On August 9th, the same “Boot Camp” will be repeated but with an option for more in-depth training in the afternoon. This would be for all MS/HS teachers and new teachers.
· On August 9th, there will be an all-day optional ActivTable training for all elementary teachers. If you wish to know how to use your table before school begin this is your chance. Otherwise this will be done in small pieces during the school year through our after-school monthly model.
· If staff members choose not to attend or want to attend and continue to learn more there will still be the option, during the school year, of after-school modules that we have been offered in the past for new staff learning to use them and more experienced staff learning more and sharing what they already can do with others.
$100 stipends are being offers to folks who participate in the August 9th training events.
Friday August 10th will be our traditional all staff welcome back breakfast and inservice. This will take place in the newly completed cafeteria from 8 to approximately 10 AM. The 10 to 11 AM time slot is being set aside for building staff meetings. Your principal will notify you of the locations where these will be held. You should have time from 11 AM until the end of the work day to prepare your rooms for students. As an additional bonus, the Center United Methodist Church will be providing their traditional pot luck lunch from Noon to 1 PM on this day. I encourage all of you to attend this fine event.
New staff members may come in and prepare their rooms for students on Saturday August 11th. They will be paid for the day if they do so.
I am Looking forward to seeing everyone this week as we are gearing up for opening day!
Joe DiMaggio, referring to Opening Day
"You look forward to it like a birthday party when you're a kid. You think something wonderful is going to happen."
Joe DiMaggio, referring to Opening Day
"You look forward to it like a birthday party when you're a kid. You think something wonderful is going to happen."