The Cornelius Chronicle

March 11, 2016

Anita Archer Gems

• Explicitly teach vocabulary:
• Draw a picture of the words
• Chorally read vocab words
• Chorally read the definitions
• Use the words in a sentence

Report Card Revisions for next year...

Big thank you to Daisy, Rosa, Leah, and Chelsea for serving on our impromptu district report card committee on Tuesday and making some minor tweaks to our report card for next year.  Mostly we tried to be consistent across grade levels and to make the report card more user friendly for parents since the primary purpose of the report card is a tool of communication for parents.  One change we made is to separate report card statements in math that have multiplication & division or addition & subtraction together, so that parents can note which area is mastered or not.  Also, we are including spelling with other areas of conventions rather than a stand-only item across all grade levels.  We are also eliminating the stand-alone statement in reading that says the student can read at  [insert grade] level, as all of the reading standards underneath that line imply the specific grade-level skills that are/aren’t met.  We are also trying to get the Spanish descriptions of E-Exemplary, M-Meets, P-Progressing, and L-Limited Progress to match the English marks, so that it makes sense to our Spanish-speaking families what an E, M, P, and L mean.

Official Math Curriculum Adoption

Our math adoption committee has been piloting HMH Go Math curriculum for the last month and last night we voted to go with HMH Go Math for our curriculum adoption for next year!  Our district has never had an aligned K-6 math adoption before, and we now have a  K-12 math adoption!  This is very exciting.  All teachers should receive their teacher’s guides and online access on April 29th to have plenty of planning time for next year’s implementation!  Huge thanks to Daisy, Jacob and Chelsea for piloting the curriculum this year and for participating in the training and selection process!

Cornelius Cruisers

Our Cornelius Cruisers program will be starting the week after spring break.

All staff and students are encouraged to participate in a lunch time running/walking club again to help raise awareness of the Team Up for Students 5K race benefiting W.L. Henry Elementary on May 14th.  Last year this race benefited Cornelius Elementary and resulted in $200/classroom!  (Don't forget to send your thank you notes and photos to Marcia Camacho so she can share with donors how the funds were spend).

Cornelius Cruisers- Tuesdays and Thursdays starting after Spring Break and continuing till the race on May 14th.

2nd-4th grade students will participate at lunch recess.  Our method of tracking laps is they will each be given a number (to remember).  Cesar has volunteered to be out there tracking laps from 12:15-1:05.  (Student passes, tells him class and number and he marks it down on the tracking sheet.)  

K-1st grade students will participate at afternoon recess.  Our method of tracking laps is Alejandra has volunteered to be out there with 2 leadership kids to stamp kids hands as they pass.  When students return  to class please tally how many laps each student did on your classroom tracking sheet.  

Diego has volunteered to collect the tracking sheets each Thursday afternoon and update the spreadsheets so we can have graphs in the hallway of grade level and classroom laps!  Many thanks to Debbie B. for creating our original spreadsheets too!

Cheryl has volunteered to help award prizes.

15 laps-Participants will have a certificate with their name and picture in the hallway leading to the cafeteria.

30 laps-Participants will get a face sticker

45 laps-A coupon (we hope) (possibly to Sonic)

60 laps-A cougar pencil

70+ laps-A water bottle

Don't forget to sign up for the actual race!  http://www.teamupforstudents.org/

Thanks everyone for making this work!  

ELPA

We are on track to finish ELPA on Wednesday!  Kudos to all teachers who prepared our students for ELPA!  It shows!  Big thanks to Melissa and Janelly for organizing and proctoring ELPA testing this year!  

Saying goodbye to a couple of staff members

As some of you know, Patty Schuppert resigned last week effective 3/9 for personal reasons.  I wanted to let you know that Tabitha Shepherd is resigning at the end of this year to be closer to her family.  Tabitha has been commuting from Albany every day this year and most of last year! We will miss both of them!

An addition to Cornelius - SLC (Social Learning Center)

Due to a district-wide need, we are adding an SLC classroom to Cornelius to the portable classroom starting after spring break.  The current classroom space at Harvey Clarke is not adequate space for the number of students in the SLC.  Please help me welcome teacher, Amy Kelleher, and IAs, Dana Bloch and Maritza Alfaro, to Cornelius!  Amy will be coming to the beginning of our CIT time on Wednesday to introduce herself.  We are excited to have extra behavior support and collaboration on behavior protocols from this expert staff!  Thanks to Emma for being flexible with giving up her space in the portable!

Reminders:

• None!

Bus Duty: 1st & 3rd grade teachers, and the “regulars”!

Calendar:

3/13 Daylight Savings begins - “spring” ahead an hour!

3/15 8:00 am Referral Team

3/15 4-8 pm Parent Conferences

3/16 Merry’s Birthday!

3/16 8:00 am CIT: Data Teams - Collaboration

3/16 12-4 pm Elementary Principals (Angella)

3/16 2-3 pm 4th Grade Milagro Theatre Presentation

3/16 4-8 pm Parent Conferences

3/17 8 am - 4 pm Parent Conferences

3/17 8 am - 12 pm Admin Meeting (Angella)

3/17 St. Patrick’s Day!

3/17-3/18 No School!

Looking ahead:

3/21-325 Spring Break!

3/28-4/1 Spirit Week!