In Your Easter Bonnet...

With all the frills upon it.  You'll be the grandest lady in the Easter Parade.  Published in 1933 by Irving Berlin and sung by Judy Garland in Easter Parade.  This song always comes to mind as we approach Easter.  I also remember my mother taking me shopping for my Easter dress and it always came with a straw Easter Bonnet.  And white gloves too!  I have great memories of holiday family traditions many of which have gone by the wayside as my family scattered all over the country.  I hope you all have special memories that you treasure -- some that you may keep, and new ones that you may be creating with your own families.  

I am going to include the next two weeks in this blog as I am planning to be blogless next weekend.  I will be spending the weekend at USF watching Prince compete in the UFE Liberty Fitness and Bodybuilding Competition, then relaxing and enjoying my birthday.  It's a rare occurrence, but I'm taking a weekend off from work! 

This week's happenings....

Tuesday I will be at a Marketing Development workshop with Nicki and it is spring picture day.  Please refer to Karen's email for the schedule. 

Friday I am at an Admin Meeting at the Bethany.

Next week's events....

Monday is a faculty meeting.  Here are the plans for this meeting from my blog two weeks ago. 

March 26 will be a grade level PLC meeting to discuss: religion standards and making sure all are covered at some grade level (Gr. K-5), discussion of how the safe environment standards are being incorporated (Gr. K-5), retention/remediation (MS), Lent retreat final details (MS), other topics as needed (all grades).  Teachers will meet as follows:  Middle school - Julianne, Jennifer, Katie, Kasey, Kelly G.  Elementary -  Kelly M., Krista, Nathan.  Early Childhood - Sue, Susana, Kim, Maria, Heather, Julie, Elaine.  Teachers in Gr. K-5 should meet with your partners during joint planning to discuss any plans to work together for the Lent Retreat and possible retention/ remediation.  In addition, Julianne and Jennifer should meet to review religion and safe env. benchmarks.  Be sure to share all minutes of meetings with Charles and me.  Middle school may choose to meet during lunch (please let me know the day and time).  The other groups must meet that Monday afternoon.  Charles and I will join you so let us know where you are meeting. 

Wednesday is Field Day

Thursday is the school Lenten Retreat.  If you recall I gave teachers a half-day PD schedule at the beginning of the year.  In order to have half days, there must be something scheduled for teachers in the afternoon.  For this half-day I schedule a retreat for us.  My plan is to provide a simple lunch and combine that with a retreat.  I do not imagine we will be here beyond 2 p.m.  Only teachers are required to attend. 

Here are some things to do before we go on break:

• Have students clean out lockers and desks
• Clean desk and table tops
• Clean whiteboards
• Straighten up your office

When we return after Easter, time will fly so be prepared for everything that must get done before we end the school year.  

Daylight Savings Forever?

 What a pleasure it will be to have the extra hour of sunshine tonight, but I'm sure I will not be happy driving to work in the dark tomorrow.  I find it interesting that we want to stay in Daylight Savings Time forever and most of Arizona never uses it.  If Florida does end up staying in Daylight Savings Time and we move to Atlantic Time in the winter, I'm mostly concerned about my TV shows.  I'll never be able to stay up late enough to see anything! 

Please see last week's blog for Faculty Meeting instructions.  Friday is Jeans and Green.  To be in jeans, the student must have on a St. Patrick's theme, mostly green (not a white shirt with a green alligator logo), school spirit, or school uniform top.  May the luck of the Irish be with you this week! 

Iowa Week

Don't let this happen.  Remember to stress the importance of doing their best on the test so we have good information to help them be successful and at the same time reassure students that all we want is their best.  Please remember what we talked about at the last faculty meeting... Teachers should be checking the bubble sheets before turning them in to make sure all circles are dark, no stray marks, demographics are complete, etc.  We appreciate your help with this.  Homework and assessments are allowed this week, but please do not overload and make the week more stressful.  

There isn't much happening this month that we need to talk about, so the next two faculty meetings with be for PLC work.  March 12 will be for teachers to meet either as an ELA group (with me) or as a math group (with Charles).  I will be talking with ELA teachers about progress with writing and we will look at some options for a phonics program (K-2) and vocabulary instruction (3-5).  I will provide more details and give you some things to look at prior to 3/12 and I ask you come prepared to discuss.  Teachers to attend the ELA meeting in the conference room are: Katie, Jennifer, Gina, Jamie S., Kelly M., Heather, Kim, Sue, Julie, Elaine.  The Math group will discuss their use of Math in Focus: how textbooks, workbooks, manipulatives, online resources, assessments, etc. are used.  How do teachers allow for discovery, exploring multiple ways of reaching an answer, incorporating program vocabulary.  Also, come up with of list of specific topics for professional development.  Teachers to attend this meeting are:  Kasey, Kelly G., Krista, Nathan, Maria, Susana. Charles will let you know where to meet. If I listed you name, you must attend.    

March 26 will be a grade level PLC meeting to discuss: religion standards and making sure all are covered at some grade level (Gr. K-5), discussion of how the safe environment standards are being incorporated (Gr. K-5), retention/remediation (MS), Lent retreat final details (MS), other topics as needed (all grades).  Teachers will meet as follows:  Middle school - Julianne, Jennifer, Katie, Kasey, Kelly G.  Elementary -  Kelly M., Krista, Nathan.  Early Childhood - Sue, Susana, Kim, Maria, Heather, Julie, Elaine.  Teachers in Gr. K-5 should meet with your partners during joint planning to discuss any plans to work together for the Lent Retreat and possible retention/ remediation.  In addition, Julianne and Jennifer should meet to review religion and safe env. benchmarks.  Be sure to share all minutes of meetings with Charles and me.  Middle school may choose to meet during lunch (please let me know the day and time).  The other groups must meet that Monday afternoon.  Charles and I will join you so let us know where you are meeting.  

Finally, Charles and I will begin looking at your intents to return this week.  Please be sure that you are choosing to stay at St. Stephen because you believe in our mission and who we are.  You cannot look at working here as just a job.  This is a calling and a vocation.  If you do not feel called to serve in our community, be honest with yourself.  I truly do understand that your families are important and should always come first, but I also expect you to find time to meet the obligations of this profession.  With this in mind, I reflected for a long time on a change I made in the employee handbook this year.  I don't think it was a good change and next year I will be changing it back to the way it always has been written.  I believe my intent was misunderstood.  In the past teachers would ask if they could leave after carline for a dentist appointment.  The answer was always yes and I felt it unnecessary to ask.  I changed the required time from 7:20-4:00 to 7:30-3:30 and I said if all your work was done, you are free to leave after carline without asking.  I also assumed that if you needed to do something you would stay until 4:00 or later to get it done.  Next year we will go back to 7:30 - 4:00, to allow everyone that half hour to meet with teaching partners, meet with parents, help a student who is struggling, answer emails, call parents, record grades, change a bulletin board, etc.  It does not matter what time you arrive, as I know some of you arrive well before 7:30, you will still need to stay until 4:00.  The reason is that you cannot always do these things in the morning before school.  I want to be sure everyone has the time they need to get their work done.  While these will be the written, formal times, you may leave earlier on Wednesdays so that Faith Formation can get into your room and also on Fridays.  I feel that by making that change this year, I have taken away valuable time from your work, and hopefully you will see this as a positive change to help with time management.  I will also continue to work the schedule so that you have joint planning time with your partner.