It's Terra Nova Time!

Here's your first Terra Nova test question...

Where would you rather be right now?


If we've done our job right, all should go well.  Just remember to Keep Calm and have plenty of sharpened pencils. 

Raffle tickets will go home on Thursday.  Once again I ask that you rally the troops and encourage everyone to participate.  If every family did their part we could raise about $26,000.  Sadly it will be a push to raise $15,000.  Let's see if we can be All In!!  My hope was that this fundraiser would help support fobs for the FLC, however, that was before termites and alarms that never stop beeping (which I believe we have resolved).  Therefore, we really need to raise closer to $30,000 if we want to support the FLC. 

Noon dismissal on Friday is followed by parent conferences.  Every core subject teacher should be here on Friday meeting with parents.  For some parents, a conference should not be an option (see Gina's email regarding Monday's PLC meetings).  Full-time Encore teachers can use this time to work on unit plans.  All full-time teachers are expected to be here until at least 3:30 unless you have requested time off.  Be sure to send your schedule to the front office.  If you plan to be here after 4 p.m., you will need to tell your parents to come in through Extended Day.  Alert the staff there so they know who to expect and can direct them to your room.  Angel's Wing teachers will need to be creative as we cannot prop the gate open.  I would suggest you tell parents to come in through the front office and then Extended Day.  You can prop open the door to Angel's Wing after 4. 

I'm going to ask that you make one change for your PLC groups for Monday in order to discuss Safe Environment Standards.  I will send a separate email addressing what I would like you to go over.  This comes as a result of my Thursday meeting at Tampa Catholic where we are working on Religion standards.  It's important that we cover those standards each year.  I will also share with you in my email how some schools cover these standards (not everyone uses Family Life).  Therefore, I would like Early Childhood (PreK - 2) to meet as a group.  It will help when discussing safe environment (especially since both 2nd grade teachers are new) and it will help when discussing some of the students to get some background from prior grades.  I would like Jamie to join this group and discuss our input for the struggling students.  I would like Melissa, Julianne, and Alton to join the Middle School group with me. 

Next Tuesday, March 5, is our Pancake Dinner and Mardi Gras celebration.  Please make every effort to be there and support this.  This fundraiser is exclusively to support fobs for the FLC.  Encourage your students and families to attend.

On a personal note, last weekend watching our 8th graders receive the sacrament of Confirmation touched me more than most years.  It reminded me that Prince's day is almost here.  This coming Saturday at the 4:30 Mass he will be Confirmed, receive his First Communion, and be a member of the Catholic church.  His saint name is St. Joseph, patron saint of workers and immigrants - quite fitting! 

Welcome to the 3rd Trimester

Thank you to all the Presidents for their service to our country and for giving us the gift of a 3 day weekend.  I hope everyone enjoyed theirs.  I had a lot of great feedback from Friday's articulation.  The groups that met at St. Stephen had some good things to say about the day.  I hope all your sessions were as good as ours.  I believe that with our feedback to the Diocese about Friday, they will continue to have these opportunities in the future.  It was much better than sitting and listening to experts.  We, too, are experts at what we do and this was a great opportunity to share and learn from each other.  For those of you who led a session at St. Stephen, please remember to send your notes to me from your meeting.   

On Friday I received a very nice picture from some of the middle school teachers as they sat on the beach after their meeting.  I too was able to share a picture of my day, and it was also a picture pertaining to nature.  Last week Paula came and told me they had a few bugs in the classroom.  After Massey came out and after Allen took down the bulletin board in Traci's room, we discovered that a few bugs was actually a whole village of subterranean termites.  (I have the picture if anyone would like to see it.)  Allen said the bulletin board was like filet mignon to them.  I'm so glad we made them happy.  Maria also had a small termite resort in her room.  Evidently, she was only serving ground beef.  My two favorite comments that day were:
#1 Maria - can I come to school?  We are studying insects and I want some samples.  Umm no.  (I think she was joking.)
#2 The termite man - Did you see they had wings?  (Me - yes)  That means they were getting ready to swarm.  You know when they swarm in a class full of kids, the kids usually scream.  (Me - you think?!!) 
The termites should be gone.  The cost to treat is ridiculous but necessary.  Be sure to promote our raffle sale coming up! 

I saw the two new fences on either side of the breezeway before I left on Friday.  There was an issue with the gates and they had to go back to be fabricated properly.  Therefore we may or may not have gates tomorrow.  I will give you an update after I speak with Allen and Tom. 

As we begin the new trimester, look where you are in your curriculum maps and what you still need to cover before the end of the year and plan appropriately.  Remember to plan for assessments and keep in mind the rule of 4.  Four formatives for each summative and Four summatives.  Have a great week. 

All you need is love...

 "All you need is love, But a little chocolate now and then doesn't hurt."  ~ Charles M. Schulz

Happy Valentine's Day...

Happy Presidents' Day...

Happy End of Trimester 2!

And don't forget Prof Dev. on Friday!!

This will be a short week for students, but it will be a very busy week and weekend.  Here's the rundown...

Monday - Faculty meeting in Room 20 and Holy Card free dress day

Wednesday - Focus 11 for our 6th graders

Thursday - Valentine's shirt and jeans day and End of Trimester 2

Friday - DOSP Prof Dev.  If your PD session takes place at St. Stephen, please plan to meet with me in Rm 20 at 3:20 and we will have a brief pre-faculty meeting discussion of the expectations and room assignments for that day.

Saturday - Confirmation for our 8th graders  12:30 pm

Monday 2/18 - no school

Tuesday 2/19 - grades are due

Be sure you have gone over all the information Gina has sent regarding report cards and students in danger of failing 1 or more subjects.  Remediation letters need to go home or a conference scheduled by Feb. 22.

Happy Super Bowl Sunday

 Our parents were truly All In with our Fun Run.  We met our goal of $15,000 and hopefully a bit more.  Final numbers will be out later this week. Thank you everyone for helping to make this a success with your encouragement and incentives with the students.  This past Saturday was the Catholic Foundation's annual Gala event and our students' artwork received many compliments.  Proceeds from this annual event helps support scholarships for students to attend catholic schools.  And once again, thank you to all who made CSW a success.  The students had a great time on Vocations Day and the parents who came out for family night, thought it was a great idea.  

Time to get back to business.  As we discussed on Friday, please remember to keep your gradebooks current.  Parents should not be surprised with they see the report card and students need time for retakes.  You should also be keeping current with ATL grades.  One thing I did forget to mention about grades...  There are numerous Ms and As, particularly in middle school gradebooks.  They should only stay for a very short period of time and then be replaced with a zero, grade, or E.  We also discussed that there would be very few, if any, instances when we would use P for pending.  Lastly, make sure there are no blank grades.  February 14 is the final day of the trimester and grades will be due 8 a.m. on February 19.  Gina will send out instructions for grades, ATLs, Conduct, comments, what to look for, etc.  Since Feb. 18 is a holiday, we will have two days to review grades.  I will be out that Thursday so it is super important that they are correct the first time.  

We will be having classroom visits on Tuesday for PreK and Kindergarten only.  There will be two sessions 9-10 and 10-11.  Parents and their children will be in the classrooms from approximately 9:15 to 9:45 and 10:15 to 10:45.  They will meet with Nicki, Gina and I before and after these sessions.  These are the grades with the lowest enrollments right now (which is typical) so we want to put on our best face.  To give you all an update on enrollment, next year we will combine the two 2nd grade classes into one 3rd grade and we will only have one kindergarten.  Right now it looks like we will have two 1st and two 2nd grades.  I will update if anything changes.  

One last reminder, Friday, Feb. 8, is the last day to turn in your letter of intent.  This is for everyone.  Please be sure to do so before you leave on Friday.  Thank you and Go...whoever is playing in the superbowl.