Summer Updates...June 2012

I hope you're all enjoying your summer with family and friends! It has been a good one for me so far. Lots of time with kids/Jen and much more golfing lately (still not any good)! Also, I am still attempting to process the wonderful presentations and information we gained from the PLC Institute a couple weeks ago! It was well worth the trip and I hope to get those of you who have not attended one, to an Institute in the near future! As for the purpose of this post, it is my attempt to keep you all in the loop! I will update as the summer progresses so check back in (if you like). :-)

June 21, 2012
Staffing - Many of you already heard we hired Kerry Sprague as our school nurse! We are excited to add her to our office staff this fall. We have hired two associates this summer already. Stacey Squires will be returning as an associate this fall and we are excited to have her back with us! Megan Dalton has transferred from Shuler to MGE this summer and will be in our new 1/2 time associate position in Jen Latcham's room. She is bringing multiple years of successful experience as an associate within the district! Additional associate interviews are taking place next week so stay tuned. We were also approved for a 1/2 time additional reading teacher last week!! After talking to Julie, Kristin and Leslie today, we will begin putting together a job description and post the position. We believe we will be able to serve more kids at more levels this year and are excited for the opportunity provided! More to come on that one.


PLC Meetings - This is a repeat to many but just wanting to make sure the consistent message is out there: through conversation with BLT and PSC teams, we will be moving to a "daily PLC" meeting rotation this coming fall. Teams will meet at days of the cycle with 5th grade working with me on another idea of PLC later in the day. I'm still working on the logistics, but it would basically look like the following. More conversation during our initial building meeting in August and my next post will include some of rationale and conversation about why we are making the move.

• 8:00-8:50a (or 8:55a) with classrooms covered by a mix of teachers/associates.
• Day 1-1st; Day 2-2nd; Day 3-3rd; Day 4-4th; Day 5-BLT/PSC/PBIS/SPED; Day 6-K
• 5th grade tentatively Day 2 during band; 2:45-3:40p

Schedule - The RA schedule for 12-13 sits in "Draft #2" and is being reviewed by RA and BLT members. It is challenging to schedule for 30 (and possibly 31) sections with all the other "tight" variables (lunch, recess, ELP, SPED, reading lab, pre-algebra, etc.). Although the schedule will never be ideal for all, I appreciate your flexibility in making it work for your students and classroom!

Enrollment - We've been sitting pretty steady at 710 students (+/- 5) since summer started. Our kindergarten enrollment sits at 135 so we will see what July/early August brings.

Summer Cleaning - Our summer cleaning crew headed up by Shelley has been plugging along and the building looks and smells better already! :-) Not only do they work hard each day, but I've enjoyed the laughter next door during lunch this summer...I'm sure they are not laughing at me. ;-)

My schedule - I will be here the rest of the month except June 29. If you're trying to track me down in July, here are the days I'll be here and/or available. For the week of:

• July 2 - around but not in the office consistently
• July 9 - here all week except Monday
• July 16 - here on Monday; gone the rest of the week
• July 23 - around but not in the office consistently Mon-Tues; on email but not here Wed-Fri
• July 30 - will begin regular 8a-4p hours!

Back-to-School Schedule for 2012-13 has been initially announced and is tentative. More information will be provided from Dr. Wilkerson later this summer but I wanted to give you a general idea of the days/times as you begin to think about the upcoming school year (I'm not forcing you to think about school though!!):

Monday, Aug 6 - New to Waukee Teaching Staff professional learning (AM) is optional but highly recommended. Mentoring induction will be in the PM for all 1st/2nd year teachers new to the profession and their mentors.

Tuesday, Aug 7 - New-to-Waukee staff report to Prairieview (theater). Work with mentors in PM.

Wednesday, Aug 8 - New-to-Waukee staff work in buildings. Meet with me in the AM.

Thursday, Aug 9 - All Teaching Staff report! Work in classrooms.

Friday, Aug 10 - All Teaching Staff: building level mtgs/professional learning and assorted district meetings; time to work in rooms.

Monday, Aug 13 -  All Teaching Staff @ Lutheran Church of Hope in AM; work in building in the AM/PM. Open House for PK-5 is 5:00-7:00 pm.

Tuesday, Aug 14 - MGE Vision Day (formerly known as Data Day). This professional development day will be a great opportunity to have some fun and to begin the process for us to get insanely focused on what our students need. In turn, we will spend time looking at what we (our staff) need in order to able to provide the needed response. Continued work between now and August by the team of teachers who attended the PLC Institute this summer and our BLT will provide a fun and engaging Vision Day for all!