Principal's Message 5/18/2009

COUNTING DOWN THE DAYS TO THE END OF ANOTHER GREAT YEAR

There are 27 more school days with students and 29 days left total until we head into the summer with quite a number of achievements under our belt. Our goals again, for the end of the year, are to close out the school year on a high note and be as prepared as possible for the upcoming September. We must focus on this year while looking toward the next.

These remaining days, we face a few obstacles we haven’t encountered in the past. For one, our per diem for this school year has been almost completely depleted. Second, our per session is a bit low and must be conserved for absences. So how do we continue? We will have a full day of in-service planning and two half days to prepare for next year. We will continue to dedicate our subject area meetings to organize our student success plans for September. Finally, we will use our grade team meetings to close out the school year (for example, most grade teams used their meeting time to finish up progress reports). Anything beyond these planned sessions will be on a volunteer basis. No one is expected to participate unless they want to and no one will be isolated if they do not.

Administration will offer opportunities after school to provide input or even create, manufacture, or establish any systems, improvements, or contributions to the upcoming school year. For example, in the past, I have created our five goals for each school year. This June, I would like to work with as many of you as possible to develop those goals. We will host some meetings after school, according to the days that all, if not most, of you who would like to be a part of the process can attend. If most of you can do Wednesdays, then Wednesdays it is. I know many of you have challenging schedules so we will try to collect your input as well. Other ideas where your input would be greatly appreciated is the development of the staff handbook, schedule for next year, establishing our lead teachers, per session positions needed, building systems for next year, and so much more.

I know your time is very precious and I wish I could clear out days to move this work along like we have done in the past. Unfortunately, that is not possible this year. If you are able to share some of your time after school or even during your prep or before school, we would truly appreciate it. In the next few days, please let me know if you are interested in meeting up before or after school to contribute any of the ideas mentioned or even if you have some areas that you think we should be considering to elaborate on.

Once again, any feedback is better than no feedback. I invite you to be a part of the process, not only because it is much more enjoyable when you are shaping your day to day work, but because it makes a difference in so many lives. Those rewards are priceless.

ATTENDANCE FOR THE WEEK

Monday: 86%
Tuesday: 86%
Wednesday: 91%
Thursday: 90%
Friday: 86%

STAFF BIRTHDAYS

Rachel Levene May 1st
Danita Scott May 2nd
David Deatherage May 2nd
Leslie Tatum May 12th
John Gonzalez May 15th
John Ciano May 19th
Cassandra Williams May 21st
Zoe Markoupulus May 28th

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

“You can do what you want to do, accomplish what you want to accomplish, attain any reasonable objective you may have in mind... Not all of a sudden, perhaps, not in one swift and sweeping act of achievement.... But you can do it gradually—day by day and play by play—if you want to do it, if you will to do it, if you work to do it, over a sufficiently long period of time.”
--William E. Holler