Friday Flash: October 4, 2013

Feeling so grateful that we have TWO WEEKS

to go enjoy the beauty of fall.

I can't believe how quickly this break arrived.

Enjoy the beauty, the time to put some balance in your life

by spending time with friends and family

and some time to yourself!

Calendar

October 21 - 25:

Monday:

Teacher's report back/ NO students

Tuesday:

RTI meeting 7:30 a.m.

Wednesday:

Parent Orientation 8:00 a.m.

Professional Development

* Individual and/or team planning

October 28 - Nov. 1:

Tuesday:

RTI Meeting 7:30 a.m.

Wednesday:

All School Meeting

2nd and 2/3 Discovery Field Work

Professional Development 1:30 library

* Individual work on creating assessments for a content we have individually identified

Thursday:

Halloween Parade

Classroom Celebrations

Friday:

Professional Development Day

NO Students

Professional Development Schedule until next break:

* Adjustments may need to be made

* Details will be provided

October 30: Individual Assessment Work

November 6: Student Led Conferences

November 13: Individual Assessment Work

November 20: Grounding piece: Sharing in small groups progress thus far: (share and get ideas)

then continue Individual Assessment Work

December 4: Learning Expedition Backwards Planning Collaboration (assessment focus)

December 11: Grounding: Sharing in small groups thus far: (share and get ideas)

*Individual Assessment Work

December 18: Reflect and record and identify next steps (include a PD assessment)

Being Generous

Active and engaged learning often means lots of fieldwork and changes to schedules. Sometimes we forgot how those changes impact other systems within our building. Zina deals with intense scrutiny and accountability from the district nutritional services program.

We can be generous and support Zina in the cafeteria by remembering to:

* Include Zina on all class absence emails and make it really clear for her by stating, "We will not be eating lunch on date xxxx." Sometimes our emails are not real clear or are buried somewhere in the email.

* Ordering lunches and giving accurate counts on time would be so supportive. Students need to own being accurate about what they order.

* Did you notice a blue ribbon hanging on the wall by the serving line? Zina received this recognition because she had the best food and labor cost percentages in the district.

Featured Folks

By Linda Cunningham

First of all, I want to say I love my job at Renaissance! This will be my third year here and it just gets better every year. What I love the most is the focus on relationships. I teach in a total of 3 schools in 2 districts and relationships are important in all of my sites, but Renaissance makes a very conscientious effort to broadcast this to the entire community (including the message written in the front hall!). For those of you that don’t know me, I am the itinerant Spanish Teacher for the GT program at DCSD serving two sites, Pine Lane and Renaissance. Let me tell you a little about my history and my job choice might make more sense....

I grew up as a college mom brat, that is to say my mom was getting her Bachelor’s and Master’s in Fine Arts throughout my childhood. We moved a total of 17 times and I attended 14 different schools between kindie and 12th grade. Mom was single and we had no money. We shuffled from one student apartment/house to another and often had a house full of roommates. My mom was the typical California/Oregon hippie. I was immersed in college culture in everything from demonstrations to lectures, all in the wake of the ERA movement in the 70’s.

Not surprisingly, I went in the opposite direction when I left the nest. I embraced a more libertarian view and set out to put down deep roots. I came to Colorado from Oregon in 1992. I married a very conservative man and we lived in our first house for 14 years. We have two girls, Emma 18, and Hannah 14, who have moved only three times in their lives and have remained at the same schools throughout.

What does this have to do with me becoming a teacher? Well, I realized that my education suffered severely from all of the moving around we did. I wanted the opposite for my kids and left nothing to chance. I researched everything I could get my hands on about ECE and literacy. I taught my kids to read before they reached preschool. Then word spread and I became the neighborhood and family tutor. I taught my niece with a learning disability to read as well as a few neighbor kids. Then I started volunteering in schools. I had caught the teaching bug. I went to Metro State and got my teaching license and set out to get a job.

So, this job is a great fit for me! I am able to maneuver between two schools and adapt to the culture of each one. I am comfortable living out of a cart. I can relate to people of any political, socio economic, religious or ethnic persuasion. I have a passion for ECE and elementary education. To put it in ELOB terms, I am definitely kept just outside my comfort zone and I keep on growing as a result. I look forward to another amazing year here at Renaissance!

How to Make Stress Your Friend
shared by Lindsey