Great Things Going On Now
This week the grand opening of our new school to students went about as smoothly as we could have hoped, though it allowed us to discover building and procedure issues we'll need to resolve as we move forward. Though traffic in and out of our parking lot was quite congested at the beginning and the end of the day, it was a successful process overall.
Since school is now in session and we have access to the regular school entrances we would like to remind parents and community members that the routine for entering the school now is to do so from the east entrances where the offices can monitor folks and check them in to ensure the safety of our staff and student body. Thus, we will no longer be allowing people who are not staff members to enter the facility from the North and West sides.
Though the school year is barely in swing I want to thank our teaching staff for the outstanding professionalism they are displaying by submitting lesson plans to administrators each week prior to instruction taking place. Center teachers are simply among the best in the state of Colorado at creating excellent quality lessons that are aligned to our adopted curriculum and which engage all students.
I also want to take a moment to thank our building and teacher leaders for all the hard work they do reviewing lesson plans on a weekly basis, providing helpful feedback to ensure our teachers are effectively addressing our curriculum requirements through their instruction. Kevin Jones, Carrie Zimmerman, Kathy Kulp, Sarah Vance, Diane Parker, Russ Braiden and Linda Donaldson do a wonderful job of this. I know they do most of this work outside of the regular contract day and the extra time they put in is greatly appreciated.
Finally, on Friday Center Schools staff members played a key role in making our first Race to the top of the Valley Professional Learning Communities collaborative meeting an extremely successful one. Center administrators Lori Cooper, Chris Vance, Kathy Kulp, Kevin Jones, Carrie Zimmerman and Sarah Vance led PLC sessions on how to plan effective lessons. In addition, Center Schools staff members JoAnn Lopez, Jessica Stevens, Colleen Hurst, Honey Stecken, Carrie Zimmerman, Diego Martinez, Scott Poole, Andy Hawkins, Chris Vance, Lori Cooper, LJ Garcia, Sarah Vance, Kathleen Newmyer, Becky Reed, Lauren McEvoy, and Melissa Garcia expertly facilitated sessions that established PLC structures and taught participants how a PLC should operate.
Since school is now in session and we have access to the regular school entrances we would like to remind parents and community members that the routine for entering the school now is to do so from the east entrances where the offices can monitor folks and check them in to ensure the safety of our staff and student body. Thus, we will no longer be allowing people who are not staff members to enter the facility from the North and West sides.
Though the school year is barely in swing I want to thank our teaching staff for the outstanding professionalism they are displaying by submitting lesson plans to administrators each week prior to instruction taking place. Center teachers are simply among the best in the state of Colorado at creating excellent quality lessons that are aligned to our adopted curriculum and which engage all students.
I also want to take a moment to thank our building and teacher leaders for all the hard work they do reviewing lesson plans on a weekly basis, providing helpful feedback to ensure our teachers are effectively addressing our curriculum requirements through their instruction. Kevin Jones, Carrie Zimmerman, Kathy Kulp, Sarah Vance, Diane Parker, Russ Braiden and Linda Donaldson do a wonderful job of this. I know they do most of this work outside of the regular contract day and the extra time they put in is greatly appreciated.
Finally, on Friday Center Schools staff members played a key role in making our first Race to the top of the Valley Professional Learning Communities collaborative meeting an extremely successful one. Center administrators Lori Cooper, Chris Vance, Kathy Kulp, Kevin Jones, Carrie Zimmerman and Sarah Vance led PLC sessions on how to plan effective lessons. In addition, Center Schools staff members JoAnn Lopez, Jessica Stevens, Colleen Hurst, Honey Stecken, Carrie Zimmerman, Diego Martinez, Scott Poole, Andy Hawkins, Chris Vance, Lori Cooper, LJ Garcia, Sarah Vance, Kathleen Newmyer, Becky Reed, Lauren McEvoy, and Melissa Garcia expertly facilitated sessions that established PLC structures and taught participants how a PLC should operate.
The Past Week
Of course Monday was the first day of school for students in grades Pre K through 5 and the first day of Jump Start for 6th through 12th graders. As a reminder to the community, our Jump start program allows students who have specific remediation needs based on state test results to receive extra focused help in those areas in a setting where there is a very low student to teacher ratio. We believe our Jump Start program holds students accountable for trying their best when taking the state assessment and we believe the extra help students receive when they attend Jump Start has played a big role in the outstanding academic growth Skoglund Middle School and Center High School has been accomplishing during the past seven years.
Late in the day on Monday I attended a meeting at Town Hall where I became aware of community concerns surrounding our new sidewalk on 4th Street and our new water drainage areas along South Sylvester. Center Schools neighborhood residents have expressed concerns about the safety of these areas to the town and, having now become aware of this, we will be working our hardest to create a solution to address them.
On Tuesday I attended the San Luis Valley Superintendent Advisory Council meeting in Alamosa. At this session superintendents and building leaders from around the Valley prepared for Friday’s RtttV PLC Collaborative. I then chaired the Colorado School Safety Resource Center advisory board meeting via telephone on Tuesday afternoon before returning to Center for our monthly District Accountability and Board of Education meetings.
On Wednesday after school I spent time at the BOCES building in Alamosa helping to prepare various Valley building leaders and teachers for Friday’s RtttV PLC Day. I then stayed at the BOCES to attend an SLV School District Cost Sharing session that was held with the goal being to seek ways for area school districts to collaborate to save operations dollars.
Of course on Friday, Center Schools staff members joined nearly 400 educators from around the San Luis Valley in Monte Vista for the first Race to the top of the Valley PLC collaborative day. The day began with a wonderful general session that included an excellent motivational speaker named Craig Zablocki. Mr. Zablocki’s message focused on the need for educators to be role models, especially when it comes top taking risks to become better. We then heard a presentation by the Colorado Department of Education’s standards project director Brian Sevier on how the San Luis Valley can participate in CDE’s process of creating a model state curriculum. Teachers then broke up into Professional Learning Communities to begin the work of PLC Teambuilding and to focus on the fundamentals of effective aligned lesson planning. As stated above, numerous Center Schools staff members were instrumental in leading this first day of work.
Late in the day on Monday I attended a meeting at Town Hall where I became aware of community concerns surrounding our new sidewalk on 4th Street and our new water drainage areas along South Sylvester. Center Schools neighborhood residents have expressed concerns about the safety of these areas to the town and, having now become aware of this, we will be working our hardest to create a solution to address them.
On Tuesday I attended the San Luis Valley Superintendent Advisory Council meeting in Alamosa. At this session superintendents and building leaders from around the Valley prepared for Friday’s RtttV PLC Collaborative. I then chaired the Colorado School Safety Resource Center advisory board meeting via telephone on Tuesday afternoon before returning to Center for our monthly District Accountability and Board of Education meetings.
On Wednesday after school I spent time at the BOCES building in Alamosa helping to prepare various Valley building leaders and teachers for Friday’s RtttV PLC Day. I then stayed at the BOCES to attend an SLV School District Cost Sharing session that was held with the goal being to seek ways for area school districts to collaborate to save operations dollars.
Of course on Friday, Center Schools staff members joined nearly 400 educators from around the San Luis Valley in Monte Vista for the first Race to the top of the Valley PLC collaborative day. The day began with a wonderful general session that included an excellent motivational speaker named Craig Zablocki. Mr. Zablocki’s message focused on the need for educators to be role models, especially when it comes top taking risks to become better. We then heard a presentation by the Colorado Department of Education’s standards project director Brian Sevier on how the San Luis Valley can participate in CDE’s process of creating a model state curriculum. Teachers then broke up into Professional Learning Communities to begin the work of PLC Teambuilding and to focus on the fundamentals of effective aligned lesson planning. As stated above, numerous Center Schools staff members were instrumental in leading this first day of work.
Big Things We Are Working On
This week we will be focusing on submitting to CDE required revisions to our federal programs application and budget. We will also be posting our year 3 turnaround grant to the CDE Tracker website.
Construction News
The final appearance of our school grounds continues to emerge day by day. Beautiful landscaping details have been installed in front of the preschool and elementary entrances. Bike racks have been installed in this area as well! Our preschool playground is almost ready for occupation with a fantastic tree house play set and beautiful synthetic turf play surface nearing completion. The inner curbing for the South parking lot has been set and concrete parking and driveway surfaces are already being poured. Earthwork on our new football/soccer practice field is continuing and I have even seen a set of goalposts emerge at the south end of the field.
We’ll have our bi-weekly core construction committee meeting this Wednesday and we will be focusing on ordering many detail items that teachers have found lacking in their classrooms to this point.
We’ll have our bi-weekly core construction committee meeting this Wednesday and we will be focusing on ordering many detail items that teachers have found lacking in their classrooms to this point.
Our Core Beliefs
One of our district's core beliefs is that quality planning, instruction, and assessments lead to high achievement for ALL students. This value is steeped in the belief that effectively preparing for instruction is an absolute necessity to bringing about greater student learning. The work Center teachers do by continually reflecting on how to plan effectively and by consistently submitting their plans for review and feedback shows this core belief is deeply valued. I would challenge anyone to find a school district whose instructors are more prepared to teach on a weekly basis than our in the Center School District, and this has certainly brought about wonderful student growth.
Video of the Week
Great Education Colorado has declared 2013 to be the “Year of the Student” in an effort to increase statewide awareness about the effect several consecutive years of steep education budget cuts is having on our school children. At this year’s Colorado Association of School Executives annual convention Hayley Stromberg, a ThunderRidge High School student, shared her personal experiences around this topic. Haley is an incredibly well spoken young lady who offers a unique perspective on what we are doing to kids by continuing to underfund education and I encourage each of you to view her presentation at this link: http://keepingourfocus.weebly.com/videos.html
The Week Ahead
I will have a lot of time to do office work this week including submitting federal programs adjustments and our year 3 TIG plan to CDE. I will also be going through each of the schools room by room this week to meet with staff members about final needs for their classrooms. My main goal in doing so will be to make connections regarding folks who have furniture needs and those who have furniture they don’t need.
On Tuesday evening I will be attending the North Conejos School District board meeting to share with them what we are trying to accomplish through the Race to the top of the Valley Collaborative.
Wednesday brings a full day of construction meetings. On Thursday I plan to do many classroom walkthroughs to offer feedback to teachers. I will then spend the day Friday doing a lot of Race to the top of the Valley Collaborative work.
Thanks for listening again.
George
On Tuesday evening I will be attending the North Conejos School District board meeting to share with them what we are trying to accomplish through the Race to the top of the Valley Collaborative.
Wednesday brings a full day of construction meetings. On Thursday I plan to do many classroom walkthroughs to offer feedback to teachers. I will then spend the day Friday doing a lot of Race to the top of the Valley Collaborative work.
Thanks for listening again.
George