April 20, 2012

Early out schedule today!! Assemblies today!

Assemblies - As Amy has already communicated with the 4th-5th grade teams, the HS jazz choir will be here this morning to present to our 4th and 5th graders. This afternoon, we would like our kindergarteners to begin coming down at 1:20 pm. 1st and 2nd graders at 1:25 pm. Prior to the Magic Storyteller, Pizza Ranch will be presenting a check to our school for Ranch Bucks and our tip night. We will announce when we are ready for our 3rd-5th grades for the 2:30 pm showing. Please reteach assembly behaviors this morning. Thanks!

Insurance Meeting - Lora Appenzeller-Miller will be meeting with each building over the next two weeks to discuss changes to insurance and prepare everyone for open enrollment.  The Maple Grove meeting is next Thursday, April 26. All staff who receive insurance from the district will need to meet at 8am in the library. If you cannot attend the meeting here, you must attend one of the following times/locations: April 24-WH 3:45; April 25-SMS 7:20; Apr 27–Shuler 8AM; April 30-Eason 8AM;

May 2–WMS 8AM and HS 1:15PM; May 4–WE 8am

Can you hear me now? Yeah!! We now have long distance in several locations in the our building for teachers to use to call parents. Please add the following extensions to your phone list: Conference Rm 119 - x6104 (phone coming soon!); Conference Rm 605 (office) - x6102; Staff Lounge - x6108.

Summatives - Please make sure you know your time for your summative/annual conference (schedule here).


The PTO needs your help with a couple things. First, if you can make it to our Panera night next Tuesday, please sign up for the 6:15-8:00pm shift (or even any time within if the entire time does not work). EASIER THAN THAT...please see the request from our co-president, Allison Hamling below. This is for ALL Maple Grove staff! If your name is not on the document, let me know!

We are planning something special for Teacher Appreciation Week.  Please use the link [below] to fill in your "favorite things".  It will automatically save and I promise it will only take a minute.  Thanks for being the best teachers and staff in Waukee!!!  http://bit.ly/HJb7mu  Let me know if you have any questions. Allison Hamling 

The PTO would like to pass along this message regarding Family Fun Night. I would also like to thank everyone who helped with this event (baskets, materials, attending, etc.)!!

We would like to thank you for making our Family Fun Night a huge success!  Although the weather was a bit crazy we had a great turn out!  We appreciate your help in every aspect from donating items for the raffle baskets, purchasing raffle tickets and volunteering at the event.  Our goal for the evening was to get families together to have some fun and to raise money for educational technology for our children's classrooms.  We were hoping to raise $2000.  We surpassed our goal significantly with over $3500 in raffle ticket sales!  We would love to get feedback if you have ideas/suggestions for making future Family Fun Nights even more fun!  Feel free to e-mail us! PTO Activities Committee (Trinia Rudicil, Abby Smull, Kelly Deimerly)

Grant Opportunity - I received the following message from Phillip McLean and am passing it along to you!

All though the 2011-2012 school year has not concluded yet we know many teachers are already planning for next year. ABC5 and Banker’s Trust want to help teachers by giving them a $1000 One Classroom at a Time Educational grant.  Every year I hear teachers say they don’t think their program is worthy of funding.  Rest assured while not every project is funded, they all deserve to be.  So if you have any faculty that need money for a special project for next year, or even a special project this year; please encourage them to apply for the final One Classroom at a Time Education Grant of 2012. Applications are due by COB on 5/1 and will roll over to next August’s grant. Phillip McLean, ABC5 pmclean@myabc5.com

Odd's n End's

• If your team's field trip or other event is not on my Google calendar, email me!!
• A group of teachers from Villisca (IA) will be visiting on Monday, April 23. I will have their schedule out today - they are visiting multiple classrooms so you should just expect to have a visitor at some time on Monday. Thank you for being welcoming - they are excited to learn!
• The final at-bat scores are online. You will be able to see how it really came down to a photo finish to see who gets to sing to us!! Congrats to RA for winning the first annual school wide contest - we will be changing the contest up next year to involve more physical feats so start thinking...or worrying!
• MGE Parent Advisory Meeting is scheduled for next Monday at 7:30pm in the library. Anyone is welcome to join us. Focus: parent survey results and educational reform conversation.
• 1st Grade interviews will be conducted next Wednesday in the 2nd grade conference room. The printer will be turned off from 8am-11:30a and 12:00-3:30p.

I received one of my best "roster request" emails ever this week...

Dear Mr. Barry, This year I am requesting every teacher in __ grade! I wanted to let you know how excited my husband and I are to send our child to Maple Grove again this coming fall. I know you may get a few requests this time of year that may have specific requests or suggestions but we wanted to let you know how impressed we've been with the team of teachers this year (who all know my child's name) and have heard good things about the caring and dedicated teachers in __ grade too! We appreciate all the hard work all your staff puts in every day. From Paula in the office to the custodian in the lunch room to the associates at recess. Everyone smiles, says hello and seems to like what they do. Have a great rest of the year and a restful summer! 

Thank you, MGE staff - your positive energy and caring attitude is noticed and does make our building a great place to learn, grow and laugh.

Have a great weekend!

He who laughs, lasts

DB