I have always worked to infuse technology into my schools as a principal. I was in charge of re-booting the server in one of my schools and used my van to bring refurbished workstations to our classrooms. So, I ask the question, is this what supporting excellence in the digital age looks like? Not exactly. Leadership in the digital age is a rich and complex mix of skills. I am excited to have the opportunity to explore this question in depth as a member of a panel at the first ISTE Leadership Conference next fall. I will be joining Paula Don, Director of Educational Technology for the School District of Philadelphia, and Kim McMonagle, Director of Educational Technology for the Douglas County, Colorado, School District. We will be discussing the ISTE National Educational Technology Standards for Administrators. In particular, we will be discussing the standard: Excellence in Professional Practice. We are in the planning stages of this work and I look forward to sharing more about this leadership work with you.
I wanted to let families know of some classroom changes for next year. We track our expected enrollment very closely and we found that we will start the next school year with 20 kindergarten students. It is great news to have so many young students joining our school community but 20 five year olds in one classroom can make it difficult to meet the needs of our youngest learners. The teachers and I discussed this situation and came up with the following solution which e feel best meets the needs of students. We will now have two kindergarten classrooms next year taught by Cindy Friel and Gail Piotrowski with 10 students in each class. We will still have two 1st & 2nd grade classrooms that will be taught by Jennifer Ellis and Diane Siegriest with 15 students in each class. We will also have two 3rd & 4th grade classes taught by Kathie Pingree and Jill St. George with 20 students in each class. The numbers for these classrooms are based on our current knowledge of our enrollment and are subject to change as some families move over the summer. I know that parents might have questions about these changes. I want you to know that we always consider the skills of our teachers and the nature of our students when we make decisions about classroom configurations. We also use our special education staff along with our math and reading specialists to support classrooms that have students with special needs. I am confident that the professional teaching staff at Westford Elementary will create excellent opportunities for our students with these new classroom configurations.
It certainly has been a trying few days as far as the roads and bus routes are concerned. I appreciate all of the parents who have gone out of their way to help get children to school. Even though the closed roads have made things difficult, it was heartening to see how everyone rallied together to make things work. I really owe a debt of gratitude to Mrs. Perry who has put in countless extra hours to make sure students had a way to get home. I also appreciate the work of Richard and Linda Mathieu, the owners of our bus company, for all of their efforts to think of new ways to run bus routes. Finally, I appreciate the efforts of families who worked together to help children get to our temporary mud season bus stops. Let me conclude with some late breaking news to report after speaking with the bus company this morning. Starting on Monday, April 2nd, all of our bus routes will return to normal operation! Thanks again for everyone’s patience during this muddy time!
Everyone must have noticed the new concrete barriers that have been placed along the student walkway in front of the school. They look pretty plain now but in the very near future you will see them brightly painted by our students and filled with flowers. There is a very important reason we placed these barriers in our driveway – student safety. Vehicles don’t always stay clear of students and these barriers are a visual reminder to keep vehicles and pedestrians separate. There are other safety rules that we all need to get better at following: Our driveway is a one-way circle. Many of us forget each day and drive against the flow of traffic. This results in cars, buses, and children intermingling each morning. Parents should use the side lot to drop off children. The driveway in front of the school is a fire zone yet people park cars there every day. How can you be sure there will be no emergency while your car is blocking the front door of the school? Drive slowly and carefully in the driveway. We are all very busy but our students’ safety deserves the extra care. We will be making much needed repairs to the driveway this summer thanks to the positive vote on the school budget. While that ill help, we really need all drivers to use our driveway safely.
Dis-ci-pline \ˈdi-sə-plən\ (verb): to train or develop by instruction and exercise especially in self-control
Parents and students often have questions about the discipline policy at our school. School discipline can be a complicated subject. Our school does not use a “one-size-fits-all” discipline policy. The ages in our school typically range from age three to age thirteen. A lot of learning and development occurs in the decade that most students attend Westford Elementary School. Because of this, our school uses graduated discipline and believes that “discipline is a form of teaching and is most effective when done in a positive manner..” (CCSU Student Handbook)
So what does this look like exactly? Let me use “disrupting class” as an example. Our student handbook shows how the disciplinary response to this behavior is graduated according to grade.
Following the idea of graduated discipline, a second grade student who was talking to his/her classmate during reading class would be reminded to listen by the teacher. If this student continued to talk out and disrupt instruction, he/she would be sent to “time-out” where she/he could reflect on the behavior and then return to the lesson. If the behavior continued, our planning room coordinator would be called to take the student out of the room to develop a plan to show appropriate behavior when the student returned to class. At this point we are not thinking of giving this seven year-old a detention or permanently removing him or her from class. Let’s take this idea a little bit further and consider a 12 year-old student in sixth grade. The same behavior occurred, talking out in class. The teacher’s first response might be the same as in the first example: a reminder and then a time out if the behavior continued. Taking the example a little bit further, let’s imagine the student was not just talking to a classmate during instruction but had talked back to the teacher or swore at a classmate. This makes the behavior more serious. We also take the student’s age into consideration. A twelve year-old student has a great deal of experience with the rule “listen to the teacher” and certainly knows that swearing is inappropriate. Because of this, the graduated consequence would be more significant and most likely would result in a removal from the whole class period and a detention.
As I mentioned at the beginning of this article, discipline can be a somewhat complicated subject. The teachers and staff at Westford review our discipline procedure each year to see that it meets the needs of our students. You can find an outline of this procedure on our school web page under the link “Responsive Discipline.”
The Westford School Board has completed its work on next year’s school budget after a series of meetings in December and last night’s joint budget presentation with the Westford Select Board. I am pleased that we have been able to maintain the educational programming at our school despite our declining enrollment and the tight economic times we are all experiencing. The only significant change for our school is that we will have one less homeroom in the 7th & 8th grade. Bruce O’Leary has decided to retire and we will not be hiring a teacher to take his place. Instead, existing staff members will be teaching social studies and 7th grade math classes. With this careful management of our staffing and a prudent approach to budgeting, next year’s school budget will be $9,405 less than this year’s budget. In addition to the school budget, another important decision to be made in March is the election of two members to the School Board by Australian ballot. One term is for two years and one term is for three years. I encourage members of our school community to serve on the Board. To have your name on the ballot, you must have signatures from at least 15 registered voters on an official nominating petition which you would turn in to the Westford Town Clerk’s office by 5PM on January 30th. You can obtain a petition either at the Town Clerk’s office or by downloading a copy from the Secretary of State’s web site: http://www.sec.state.vt.us/TownMeeting/info_candidates.html. Anyone who does not file for inclusion on the ballot can always offer his/her services on the Board as a write-in candidate. I encourage you to come to the informational hearing on the school budget which will be held on March 5th at 7:00 PM in the school gym and to come and vote on the school budget on March 6th between 7:00AM and 7:00PM
There are many things that make Westford Elementary School an enriching place for children. Parents, community members and teachers have always worked together to extend our students’ learning. To help with work, a group of parents have collaborated with me to establish an Enrichment Committee. This committee works with the school to find ways to provide enriching opportunities for our students. One example is the World Culture Club being lead by parent volunteer Julie Miller. I’ll let Julie describe this exciting club in her own words:
The Westford Enrichment Committee is pleased to be able to offer the World Culture Club to all 3rd and 4th graders during their lunch and recess time, once every other week. The club gives students a chance to explore countries and culture through language, stories, art, music, dance, food and games. We have been very pleased at the participation, the club having had an average attendance of about 26 children. The countries that we have covered thus far are: Jamaica, Netherlands, Kenya, Costa Rica and Panama. Each child has a passport and we “stamp” the passport each time we visit another country. We have offered traditional foods from these countries and the children have been great about trying different dishes ! We’ve danced to some reggae music, seen pictures and videos, located the countries on a map, learned some Dutch and Spanish, made windmills and monkey trees, and more. In all, we will cover at least 16 countries this year. Parents and other volunteers have stepped up and are scheduled to share with our children about Poland, Sweden, Haiti, India, Nepal and Iraq. However, we have six club meetings open. Should you desire to come in and talk about another country, contact Julie Miller, 872-2641.
I appreciate Julie’s work and the heart-felt efforts of our school community as they support Westford’s students!
Today is the last day of teacher and staff appreciation week and what a wonderful week it has been! We all really appreciated the kind efforts of our students and parents this week. The Westford PTO helped organize this event which was entitled “You Are O’FISH’ALLY Awesome.” Teachers and staff arrived on Monday morning to see our hallways filled with fish cut-outs containing special messages of thanks from our students. Parents had also organized meals and snacks throughout the week which everyone thoroughly enjoyed.
I was chatting with a few of teachers this morning about students they had taught years ago. It meant so much to have these students, now adults, remember them with a warm greeting. A few words of thanks and recognition are the perfect gift for any educator. Long after the tasty cookies are gone, the kind words live on.
Share your thoughts about teacher appreciation by leaving a comment below.
I am pleased to announce that the School Board has approved Jennifer Ellis as our new 1st & 2nd grade teacher for next year. Jennifer will be joining Gail Piotrowski who will also be teaching a 1st & 2nd grade multi-age class next year. Jennifer is a resident of Essex with 5 years of very successful primary grade teaching experience in Montpelier.
Please take a moment to remind your son or daughter about our school dress code as we enter the warm days of spring. You can find the dress code in our online handbook but here are the essential elements:
“…Appropriate attire meets acceptable criteria for hygiene and safety and does not distract from the learning process. Appropriate clothing covers stomachs, backs and undergarments. Tank-style tops have straps wider than two finger widths. Shirts have necklines no lower than four finger widths below the collar bone. Undergarments, including underwear and bras, are covered. Skirts and shorts are long enough so the hem falls at fingertip length or below when arms are placed at sides when standing. Inappropriate clothing includes items with obscene or vulgar terms; messages of hatred, violence, discrimination, sexual innuendo or that promote the use of alcohol, drugs, and tobacco; halter tops, spaghetti straps, short skirts, and see through items (unless the clothing item covers other clothing that meets the dress code). Any item of clothing deemed by school personnel to be distracting, disruptive or provocative is also inappropriate as school attire….”
Thanks for your help in keeping our school a healthy and respectful learning environment!
Have you ever been confused by a grade you have received? “Why did I get a high grade when I receive a low grade last time?” The grade might have been accurate but you might have had little understanding of how much your own learning had grown.
Fortunately, our students have a very good understanding of how much growth they have made over the school year. Our students will be sharing this good news with their parents during student led conferences over the next two weeks. Student led conferences put the student in the “driver’s seat” as they choose artifacts and work samples that they are proud to share. Student led conferences will be held after school and into the early evening on April 7th and April 13th. Parents can schedule a time for a student led conference by visiting our school web site.
Share your thoughts about student led conferences by leaving a comment below!
