Commodore Pride

 

This quote caught my eye this week.  Just a great reminder of what all of us need.  Thanks for providing a safe place for students to learn (emotionally & physically), a sense of belonging (your smiling faces), choice in their learning and of course - FUN!  

Remember, if you have any competitions or fun activities in your classrooms and need some prizes we have cards for chips and drinks in the office or we can talk about other ideas!  

I was reading in Edutopia this week about equity and engagement.  I happened across this article, geared towards junior high classrooms.  The author talks about how gamifying her classroom increased engagement and motivation.  It was an interesting article, so I thought I would share!  Thanks!

ARTICLE

Important Information: 

Commodore Pride:  This week, the student council has been working on several activities to engage our student body in, virtually, for the boys basketball sectional.  We wish our coaches and players best of luck.  

    *  Dress Up Days:  We will be taking tally of the number of students in each grade that are participating in dress-up days for the pep session.  Please use this google form to enter the tally during your 2nd period class.  We encourage you to put a student in charge to help remind you!  Here is the FORM.   The grade level that has the most students participate will earn donuts!  

 Dress-Up Days include:

• Monday ~ Pajama Day
• Tuesday ~ Uniform/Jersey
• Wednesday ~ USA
• Thursday ~ Fancy Day
• Friday ~ Black Out
• If we win the first two games and move on to the championship game on Saturday, the theme for the game would be Crazy Green.

* Tic Tok Competition - Students have been asked to participate in a Tic Tok Competition that promotes school pride.  Videos are due to Mr. Zellers by Monday morning and students will be voting on the winners!  

* Virtual Pep Session - Tuesday during 2nd period, we will have a virtual pep session for our boys basketball team.  Teachers, it is important that you make time for this.  We will have an announcement and a video link will be sent to you.  It will not take up much time, but will help us share our Commodore Pride.  More information will come!  

Ron Clark Brainstorm -  Junior High Teachers, we will move our Ron Clark brainstorming session to Thursday morning, March 4th, at 7:25 a.m. in the high school library.  We would like your thoughts about how we should best move forward and schedule some events for students.  All junior high teachers are welcomed and encouraged to attend.  

End of the 9 Weeks:  Teachers, there has been some chatter about the possibility of extending the 9 weeks due to our snow days.  It really wasn't on my mind because we had virtual days.  I wanted to see how all of you felt about it.  Please take 2 seconds to fill out this form and provide feedback.  FORM HERE

Legislative Update:  Here is a quick update on some of the bills we were following.  The legislative process has made it to the middle point.  Basically, the bills have made it through one side of the house and committee work and they are moving on to switch to the other house.  A bill goes through 3 readings along with committee work to see if it can make to the second half of the session.  Some bills are lost in the process, others move to the other side of the house and others get moved to other bills. 

HB 1001 - Budget Bill  - Education items in the Bill: (Education makes up 52% of state budget)

       * Early Graduate ADM Funding - It is in the budget bill that schools will get the second payment for early graduates.  (This is a good thing.)

       * Voucher Expansions/Education Savings Accounts - funding for ESA and Choice Scholarship Expansions are currently written into the budget.  

      * CTE Funding - The funding for high wage/high demand jobs will go up/ anything below moderate demand will not get funded (if you are interested for what this means for PC, please let me know.  It will not affect us much right now.)

    * 100% Funding for Virtual Students - still in the budget and will continue to fund our students at 100% and increases virtual charter school funding to 100% (from 85%)

HB 1005 - Creates Education Saving Counts for students with special needs, active military students and foster children a savings account for needs outside of school/ Expands Choice Scholarships to 90% of scholarship recipients and raises the family income who could apply. 

HB 1008 - Student Learning Recovery Grant - this was money that was left over from 2020 budget because ADM count was down across the state.  Is open to eligible entities to write a grant that would help with learning loss from the pandemic.  They are competitive grants.  

HB 1514 - School Accountability Bill - Will require state board to establish a dashboard of performance.  Schools could determine what is on the dashboard along with state metrics.  It eliminates interventions for failing schools, it allows this us to be held harmless for this year's test results - even though it keeps all testing for this current school year.  State Board will use social studies and science  in indicators moving forward. 

HB 1384 - Will create Civics to be taught in social studies for a semester between the grades 6-8.  They are creating the standards for this course - but it will be integrated into middle school curriculum.  

SB 54 - FAFSA Requirement:  Says that all seniors must fill out the FAFSA to graduate with a process to allow for waivers or opt out form.  

SB 413 - Education Matters Bill:  has the senate version of hold harmless school year (no letter grades) and establishes a committee to research charter school funding.  

(Bill information comes from the IASP Podcast.)