Opening Days
Posted by mevingham on August 31, 2009
Our first day for teachers is tomorrow, September 1, 2009. I am excited to have them back! Teachers bring with them a lot of energy, and when they arrive, the kids follow. AND kids bring a lot of energy too.
This summer has been full, and I am feeling a bit drained of energy. Our State Grant is due today. I mailed that last Thursday, and the shoulders felt a bit lighter. Soon, we will be doing the same for the stimulus funding, but still no word on that application. Our ESL Comprehensive Plan is due in September, but I worked on that in July and August while I waited for the application for the state grant to arrive. That was mailed in August. The PEP Grant has been a lot of work as I learn about rules and regulations for bidding, clearing equipment and hiring an evaluator. Arts in Education budgets were finalized and distributed to the principals. The Literacy Council (an internal council developed to review our K-6 reading program) planning has begun, and New Teacher Orientation was completed in mid-August. The list on my white board is almost complete, and the new list is ready to replace the old.
The next two days are designed to get us all back in the swing of things. Of course, we have the usual happenings; those required trainings that are required by SED. We have goal setting by department. This is time provided for departments to wrap their heads around and document what they hope to accomplish in 2009-2010. Our Director of Instructional and Informational Technology will be sharing with us all the new “stuff” that happened over the summer with our email, log-ins and more! We also have Will Richardson coming on Wednesday to kick off our school year as we think about preparing kids for what they absolutely need to be successful in this flat world! I am very excited that our small school has such an opportunity to have a wireless campus with so much potential. We already do so many great things, but this presentation will only stretch our thinking more, affirm some of our great work, and teach us a bit more about what we don’t know about web 2.o.
I am seeing lots of energy coming my way!
