|
Thoughts From The Superintendent - January 2012
School is back after a great holidays. A few updates on what is going on. The District got some good news this past month. We were awarded a grant to rural and low income schools in the amount of $13,678 per year and an extra $3,034 from the Federal Education Jobs Fund. Also after consulting with Baird Financial consultants the District is expecting to be able to balance the school budget for 2012-2013 without any budget cutting. All the cuts and money saving efforts this past year have put us in a strong financial position for the time being. The District Technology Committee will be meeting to discuss increasing the amount of technology we can put in student’s hands. The Calendar Committee is meeting to finalize next year's calendar. The Policy Committee meets at 5:30pm before the regular January school board meeting to continue working on the employee handbooks. The public is always welcome to attend.
Here are some of the great things I got to see this past month:
Paul Ziebell's 7th grade science creating clouds in the classroom, Lisa Dummer's 5th graders learning keyboarding as a new part of their curriculum, Scott Lenz's 6th grade phy-ed playing Battleship dodgeball, Nancy walker's JH social studies reviewing for a test using the smartboard playing jeopardy, Heidi Anderson's JH language arts class learning the difference between direct and indirect objects, Brad Bever's HS phy-ed playing floor hockey, Michelle Tucker's 1st graders making calendars as parent gifts, Leslie Keltner teaching 1st graders how to write sentences in correct structure, Karen Helbing's 1st graders showed me how they could create shapes and patterns in the computer lab, Jim Giebel's English class were working on news articles on classmates as a writing exercise, Terry Fish-Scott's 3rd grade art class was doing drawings that looked like stained glass. I got to help teach math again, this time in Karina Barker's 5th grade class with a lessons on fractions. I enjoyed some very good Holiday concerts, choir, band Junior High Choir and Chris Wiese's class singing. They really got me ready for Christmas. I saw Ben Morey's Design & Engineering class testing cantilever structures to see how much weight they could hold. I also got to see some historical and character plays from the 5th grade classes of Karina Barker, Stephanie Shankle and Lisa Dummer. I would also like to thank the junior high leadership team for painting and sprucing up the visitor’s locker room and to Penny and Russ Deakin for doing some cleaning in the locker room also.
What is encouraging is that this is only a small sample of the outstanding lessons and student learning that goes on everyday throughout our classrooms.
| 
