April 6, 2012

Good luck to Katelyn Jamison as she leaves Mrs. Cramer's (aka Ms. Coulter) room for a position at Valley HS. Please welcome Theresa Wiehoff as her replacement. Theresa may be familiar to a few of you as she has subbed in several classrooms over the past few weeks.


Thank you to our math curriculum team for their hard work on the documents presented to the staff yesterday and the collaboration it took to get you the information during our PD. I believe all of our curriculum teams work very diligently and are focused on making sure Waukee stays at the forefront of learning, instruction and assessment!!


Spring MAP for 3rd-5th grade begins next Monday. Please follow the schedule Carrie provided. Data should be entered on the SPRING TAB of your grade level Google doc when you have the data. This will help with class list meetings coming up in a few weeks.


Annual Conference forms (ITPDPs) should be emailed to your evaluator by April 13th.


Dessert Reception for our Volunteers will be on Monday, April 16, 6:45-7:15p, in our library. THANK YOU for all those who have signed up to help already! This staff rocks when it comes to showing others we care!! Opportunities still exist to help so please check out the online form!


Speaking of helping out...there are still opportunities to help at our PTO spring carnival on April 14th (click here to sign up). The kids LOVE having their teacher at events outside of school. Come on your own, bring your spouse and/or family and enjoy the fun! Thanks to those who have signed up already!


Our April 20th PTO Assembly was mentioned in the March 16 FWR, included on our Dates to Remember document, talked about at each of our last 3-4 PTO meetings and has been on my calendar for a couple months. The Magic Storyteller, Chris O'Brien, will provide an engaging assembly for our K-2 students at 1:30pm and our 3-5 students beginning at about 2:30pm. Both presentations will be about an hour long. Annual conference schedules for both Lyndsay and I for that afternoon have been blocked out as we will be in attendance. We have no other assemblies planned until the end of the year.


Paper Orders (from Office Depot & School Speciality) - Refer to Paula's email regarding the process and one requisition from each team is due to Paula by May 7th. Questions? ...see Paula. :-) 


Last day for personal days is Wednesday, May 9th. Those requests need to be to Lyndsay two days in advance (in writing or email) of your requested leave day.


Teachers who will move rooms this summer have had a conversation with me already. BLT will see the new room assignments tomorrow and the 2012-13 room assignment map will be out prior to check-out. 


April dates to stick in your own calendar...
* Apr 6 - Barry in Iowa City (recruiting fair)
* Apr 9 - MAP begins!
* Apr 13 - Annual conference forms due via email
* Apr 14 - PTO Carnival @ YMCA; 6:30-8:30p
* Apr 18 - Early out (MGE PLCs: math 'digestion'; MGE RA PLC)
* Apr 20 - 4th/5th AM HS music event;
* Apr 20 - PBIS Assemblies: Magic Storyteller in the PM (EO schedule)

Some of you are cheering, others may be shedding a tear as we enter...

Our last week of At-Bat Songs

The last month includes:

Lorri Lynde, Mark Joye, Toni Rand, Shelley Wagaman

Tasha Turner, Abby Masters, Shanlyn Doll and Thresa Stone.

I Hope You Dance - Lee Ann Womack

Send in the Clowns - Frank Sinatra

March 30, 2012

Another short survey ... :-) ...we need all staff to complete can be accessed here. Nicole and I are looking for ideas to help us recognize and honor our volunteers here at MGE. Your input is important so please complete today or this weekend. THANK YOU!!


Portfolio and Summative Documents for Career Year 3 and Initial License Year 2/3 teachers are due next Monday, April 2nd. Everyone should refer to the email sent out March 16 regarding year end evaluation procedures. Annual Conference forms (ITPDPs) should be emailed to your evaluator by April 13th.


Evening Classroom Presentations - several of you have talked to me about hosting classroom presentations in the evening between now and the end of the year. That is awesome and I will try to make it when I can (between baseball games!) Please, please, get those times and dates to Paula and I so we can enter them on the calendar. Knowing who is in the building helps our custodial staff!


Classroom/Grade Level Projects and Field Trips - PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE....if you have a major project/student presentation or field trip coming up, please take pictures and email a short summary BEFORE or AFTER to Paula so she can get the information in to the Des Moines Register. I love to see the kids in action and its great to promote the hands-on, community or technology projects you're doing with kids!


Spring Assessment Window has been communicated with our BLT and we will finalize discussion next Friday during our BLT meeting before school. I will have Google.doc "spring tabs" updated with names/ID numbers sometime next week.


Spring weather brings bugs and spiders. :-) If you notice a large number of bugs, let me know instead of filling out a maintenance request. An occasional mean spider or one large spider does not necessitate 9-1-1 call but spiders traveling in a pack may prompt me to fill out a request. 


AEA Print - "Really? Again?" you ask. ...as your team begins to think about collecting AEA print request for 2012-13 (due by the last teacher contract day), please consider turning in all grade level sets of assessments, unit projects or any print that will be multiple pages for all students in your grade level. AEA print is just short of 1/3 the cost our district office charges us. Over the past few weeks, several times, I have signed off on central print copies totaling over 500 copies and one near 1000 copies. I've included some examples of cost savings as you think about print down the stretch...and remember the less print costs, the more money we have for items like iPads, books and document cameras! Thank you!

• 250 copies     AEA=$4.00     D.O.=$11.15   Savings=$7.15  
• 500 copies     AEA=$8.00     D.O.=$22.30   Savings=$14.30  
• 1000 copies   AEA=$16.00   D.O.=$44.60    Savings=$28.60  

Fundraiser Opportunity - Not required, but I strongly encourage you to attend a fundraiser for our building that will be this Sunday, April 1st. We will be doing a car wash at the Fareway store located near the bowling alley on Hickman. Sorry for the late notice, but the high school Lego Robotics team backed out and I thought it would be a great team builder and fundraiser for us. If everyone could show up at noon and we will only be there until 5pm. DRESS APPROPRIATELY please. I'm using the following site to advertise our fundraiser. Thank you in advance!!

March/April At-Bat Songs!

 Two more next week and then the contest ends!

Who will be singing to us all in May??

Mark Joye, Lorri Lynde, Toni Rand and Shelley Wagaman - custodians

Tasha Turner, kindergarten; Abby Masters, 2nd grade

Shanlyn Doll, counselor; Thresa Stone, associate

She's Country - Jason Alden

Count on Me - Bruno Mars

At-Bat Contest Update!

Going in to our bonus round, here are the results. Winning team gets a prize.  Losing team gets to sing to all of us at our May 9 PD! :-) Custodian songs are worth double this month. Good luck