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FEBRUARY 2011
We have just passed the mid-year point of our current school year. Part of this passing includes a school-wide reading test of all our students. Each student’s score has been compared with a minimum established benchmark used by the State Office of Education. The instrument we used is called DIBELS. This assessment provides basic information regarding a student’s proficiency to read a series of words in an allotted time. In addition to this timed score additional measurements are compiled. A student’s combined score is then compared to a minimum standard, called a benchmark, indicating where a student is compared to where a student should be at this particular time of year. By January 31, every family should have received a letter from the school indicating this level of performance.
Over the past several years, the State legislature has provided ear-marked funds to hire additional reading tutors to assist students in grades 1-3 reach this benchmarking goal. Our district has been notified that the legislature is looking at possibly cutting the funding of SB (Senate Bill) 230. Current information has been provided to the legislators letting them know the value of these funds in assisting struggling readers. Losing this money would be devastating to the progress we have made in literacy. On this campus we have a half-day reading specialist working with our at-risk students in the lower grades. Please contact your legislator and share the need to continue this funding. Granite District has provided the legislature with a power point showing the strength of our gains in literacy directly attributed to this reading program.
In November, our School Community Council (SCC) drafted a parent survey and asked you to participate in collecting information in several categories regarding the functioning of your community school. A super number of 290 surveys were returned. Thank you for your time and thoughtfulness in completing this task. Since then, our SCC has entered the returns on a spreadsheet and ranked the responses. These categories, the questions and answers, will be shared monthly on our school’s web site. Much dialogue has and will continue to take place in discussions relating to this survey. Our desire is to let you know that your survey is valuable and informative. In this Thursday Envelope you will find a Community Council Elections flier. Our council has four patrons serving a two year term. By working as a group, the parents on this council ensure the representation of various viewpoints. Parent involvement is a major key to student achievement and progress. Parents make up the majority of a school community council and are often the driving force to effect meaningful school improvement for all children. You will notice the flier sets the deadline for the submittal of this Declaration of Candidacy as Tuesday, February 1. Once all nominations have been returned to my office we will proceed to vote for the four open positions that are available for the coming 2012 school year. If you have any questions, please contact my office.
I am having some “early arrivers” coming to school in the morning. We are an early start but students should not be here prior to 7:50 when we open our MPR and bring in the students on mornings when it is 32* or colder. I do not have adult supervision prior to 7:50 so students can’t come into the building. Please make arrangements to comply with this request.
Thanks to your continued support in our annual fundraiser (cookie dough and chocolates). The profit from your generosity has providing the funds to purchase four cases of copy paper for each teacher, $1000 for new titles in our library, $200 to each teacher for fieldtrips, $500 for testing material to strengthen our Accelerated Reader program, and purchase four additional document cameras. The promise made to you each year was that we would spend this money to support the teaching/learning process.
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