January 4, 2013

This is the last week I will send an "all staff" email with a link to 

the FWR. Please check the blog each Friday morning on your own. 

If you need to set yourself a reminder, that would be good!

Thank you for the gift certificate to the movies! Our boys love going to movies as a family and we all appreciate the nice holiday gift! Jen especially likes the movie-box of chocolates!

Professional Development next week will focus on providing quality feedback to students. This builds upon our continued learning around feedback, learning targets and Danielson Component 3d. A 2nd semester Drake course will be offered and information should be coming to you early next week

Teacher Quality Funding - Teams have submitted their Teacher Quality summaries and the following building plan hase been approved. I used the survey sent out in December as a guide for securing participants in the workshop/conference opportunities. With the way the staff has given input to use the money, it will be a great opportunity for almost every staff members to spend time collaborating, learning together and sharing. I am still missing several grade level planning sheets so please get those to me today. The basics of the plan are included below. If you have questions, do not hesitate to ask.

• Each grade level team will have an additional 1/2 day PLC+
• Love and Logic in the Classroom workshop (8-10 attendees on January 29th)
• ASCD Conference (4-5 attendees during spring break)

MGE Family University - I had mentioned this January 17th community event during PD a month or so ago. We are within two weeks of the event and are excited to share we have 16 workshops and 10+ booths set up for the night! The forms should have gone home with all students yesterday and the registration and information can be found on our website. Thank you to the staff who have volunteered to help and/or present. I also want to formally invite any and all of you to join us that evening for what we hope is a fun and engaging family event. Register here!

Two more MGE Family events include:

• Our first Pizza Ranch Night will be on Monday, January 14th (5-8:30pm). Our 2nd grade team will be helping during the 1st half of the evening and 5th grade will be closing it down! This is the first of three Pizza Ranch events and I appreciate everyone helping out when they are available. We raised nearly $700 from one night last year and have used the fund to support our iPads in the classroom.
• Friday, February 1, the Waukee Field House will host a MGE/EE Family Night at the games. Students will get in free with a paying adult and our students will be able to take part in a fun little contest at half-time vs. Eason students! We also hope to have our choirs sing the national anthem prior to the girls' game.

Assessment data will be sent to district office today and should be available on HEART by our work day on January 21st. If a team would like to have a "HEART walkthrough", please let me know.

Coming soon...we will not be able to use our Maple Grove or parent email listserve groups to send out messages. We (Paula, Diann and I) will be getting more information in the near future and be able to share that with you. This is the reasoning behind 'training' you now to check to blog regularly each Friday morning.

Upcoming dates to note...

Mon - PSC Mindset Committee 8am in library

Tues - Diversity and Inclusion Potluck (see Shanlyn's email or the website)

Wed - PD-Feedback; early out
Wed - Homeland Security Walkthrough @ 2:30p (Barry, DO staff, SRO, et al)

Wed - Intramural volleyball begins (see Kacey)

Jan 14 - Pizza Ranch Night (2nd and 5th grades)

Jan 17 - Family University Night (5-7:30pm)

Top 10 Viral Videos of 2012

The end of the year brings a lot of "top ten" lists but the internet has definitely created a much larger pool of top-tens! I received a link to Youtube's Top-10 Most Viral Videos from 2012 and thought this one by Procter and Gamble was a good one worth sharing. In addition to each of your jobs here, being a mom is easily THE most challenging job and they did a great job of capturing that spirit.