LAIR

Today we got the 8th grade class off to LAIR at the Sierra Outdoor School. LAIR is a leadership program that really helps our students grow and mature. The agenda for LAIR includes a high ropes course, and a day kayaking at Pinecrest Lake. I plan on heading out to LAIR to visit with the students and maybe eat dinner with them. They will be at LAIR for 3 days and nights, and for many of them this is the first time away from home. I'm not sure if the separation is harder on the students or on the parents!

VIP

It was great to have our VIP/Virtue assemblies on Friday. It's nice to recognize students who are doing a good job, not just academically, but behaviorally. Thanks to Mr. Calbert who helped run the VIP assembly at Black Oak. There are many traditions (wink, songs, secret handshakes, etc.) that I need to come up to speed on, and I appreciate the help! Same goes for Mrs. Anderson whispering in my ear for the virtue assembly at THMS. Thanks also to the McDonald family for providing the Pizza Factory certificates for our winners.

On another note, I was felling a little grumpy on Thursday after I had to chew on some students because their behavior was not up to snuff. As I was walking back to my office, Mrs. Gold's class class was playing "Leaves and Pumpkins" (Duck, duck, goose, for you lay people). I noticed an open spot in the circle, and decided to have a seat. Nothing like a good game of leaves and pumpkins with kindergartners and first graders to make you forget misbehaving 7th graders!

Trophies

A couple of weeks ago, Mr. Calbert approached me and wanted to do something about the trophy cases in the hallway at Black Oak School. The glass has been gone for many years, and most of the dusty trophies were older than our students (some were older than the new principal!). We spent a few minutes boxing up the old trophies, and now the trophy cases are a display area for student work. The first "exhibit" was the T.P. roll creations by Mr. Calbert's class. I loved the creativity of the sailing ship, the wind chimes, and the dachshund. There were great displays if imagination, and the students from all grade levels really enjoyed looking at the projects as they were in line for lunch. We now have Mrs. Ransom's class on display with their "Boxcar Children" dioramas. I was chatting with some of the artists as they were waiting to board the bus the other day. It is nice to see the children get excited about their work being showcased.

Now the question is what do I do with the 5 boxes of trophies (Some dating back to the early 1960's!) that are now stored under the stage?

7th and 8th Basketball

Today our Lady Braves took on the team from Soulsbyville, and unfortunately both our teams were handed defeats. The 7th grade girls went cold in the second half, and didn't score a basket. It seemed everything the Soulsbyville 7th graders threw up went in.

The 8th grade girls then took to the court, and were pretty evenly matched. Maria led the team well, and we were ahead at half. Soulsbyville came back in the third quarter to take the lead by 4. Our girls had many opportunities to tie the game up, but we couldn't get the shots to drop. It was good to see Becca and Bailey from Pinecrest playing with the Twain Harte girls.

Since I'm talking about sports, our noon-league softball season is in full swing (pardon the pun), and it is great to have kids out doing organized activities at lunch recess. It helps me get to know the students better, and hopefully they are enjoying it some.

On a completely different note... Blogger (from Google) allows publishers to put ads on their blogs to raise funds. I've enabled ads on this blog as an experiment (They are over there>>> below the archives). So far, I've not made a penny from these ads, and have included a poll to see if folks think the ads should stay or go (Over there, >>>>>> above the followers). Any funds made from any ads will go to the school, by the way. I'm not looking to enrich myself. Let me know where you stand on these ads by answering the poll question. Thanks!

6th grade Girls Basketball

Last Thursday, before Back to School Night, I attended the 6th grade girls basketball game versus Curtis Creek. I had heard that the CC girls had just mopped the floor with one of the neighboring schools, and that there were at least three on that team who are on a local traveling team. Needless to say, I was nervous for our 7 girls. The first quarter confirmed my fears when the Mustangs outscored the Braves 8 to 2. Seems everything they threw up went in, and their defense held our girls out near the three point line. We made a nice comeback in the second quarter with Sarah scoring 5 and Allison sinking a nice shot at the end of the first half to bring the game within 1. Alas, we couldn't do much more in the rest of the game, and the Curtis Creek Mustangs defeated the Twain Harte Braves 18 to 11. All of our girls played well, and our coach, Noel, did a nice job of getting all the girls playing time, and was very positive throughout the game.

I am thankful to the parents, coaches, and athletes that make up our athletic program. I hope to be able to build a strong athletic program and give kids opportunities to get out and participate. I believe extra-curricular and co-curricular activities are one of the things that set an excellent school apart from a good school, and I intend to make Twain Harte an excellent school!

Back to School

The state finally released the API scores on Monday. Black Oak School showed impressive gains of 53 points, the second highest point gain in the county. All of the schools in the district are now over the state's goal of 800 points. Way to go!

It was great to see all the families tonight at back to school night this Thursday. The teachers have been working hard on getting their rooms ready, and it was nice to be able to showcase that work. I am proud of the school and am happy to show it off.

Keeping an eye on those 8th graders...

On Thursday night we had a meeting for 8th grade parents to discuss the upcoming LAIR trip. We had a good turn out of parents, and after Mrs. Bickley covered the important aspects of the leadership building trip, and answered the few questions parents had, the meeting then became a chance for the 8th grade parents to begin making plans for the fund raising events for the rest of the year to get ready for the end of year trip. It was nice to see parents actively engaged in ensuring their child had a great school year.

On Friday I was visiting Mrs. Bickley's class as she was discussing the early American colonies, and was discussing the issue of slavery. To make a point about the nature of slavery, Mrs. Bickley suggested that the 8th graders would need to "invade" Mrs. Anderson's 6th grade class down the hall, look the 6th graders in the eye, and say they were not human, so as to be able to enslave them and own them as property. I believe this is an inherent mindset in 8th graders, so I was not at all surprised when at least half a dozen of them raised their hands and said they were ready to lead the charge right then and there. I made a mental note at that point to keep a closer eye on these 8th graders...

B.O.T.H.

This morning I attended the Ed/Law meeting at the County Office of Education. This is an opportunity for local educational leaders to meet with county law enforcement (Sheriff, Sonora P.D., Probation and CHP) to address any issues that schools may be having. We went around the table and discussed how the budget issues have been affecting us. It was an eye opener to hear how hard some of the other agencies have been hit, and I felt fortunate (or was it naive?) to say that we're doing relatively well budgetwise, all things considered.

When I returned to school the B.O.T.H. meeting was in progress. B.O.T.H. is the parent club for Black Oak and Twain Harte schools (hence the acronym, B.O.T.H.). This is a dedicated group of parents who work to help out the teachers and students at the schools. Today they were reviewing a number of requests for funds and were electing officers. It was nice to see parents of kindergartners getting involved (the term "fresh blood" was used). Later in the meeting the group began to start making plans for the Halloween carnival. Someone mentioned a large Winnie the Pooh costume that would fit me... I'm starting to get worried.

Over the last few days we've started having IEP meetings for our special education students. While I am still getting to know many of these students, what I've really taken away from these meetings is how dedicated my teachers are to ensuring all students are successful here. It gives me a good feeling about my staff as I know the kids are in great hands!

The draft...

Today we held the draft. Not the "You're in the Army now" type of draft. No, this was far more serious than that. Today was our first noon-league sports draft.

I gathered 16 of the best 8th grade athletes together and had them select teams from the 5th-8th grade students who signed up for our upcoming softball season. Our games will be held at lunch time recess starting tomorrow. Serious bragging rights (and maybe a tee shirt?) are on the line here.

A beautiful drive

Yesterday I drove up to visit Pinecrest Elementary. My official job title is "District Principal" meaning I'm responsible for all four schools in the Twain Harte -Long Barn Unified School District. Those schools are Black Oak Elementary, Twain Hart Middle School, Twain Harte Academy, and Pinecrest Elementary. I haven't been up to visit Pinecrest yet, and decided yesterday was a good day to go up the hill. The little 3-room Pinecrest school is in a beautiful location at about the 5800 foot level in the Sierra. Chris Bunow, the office manager, took me on a tour of the three classrooms. It was nice to see Mr. Brown's 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade classrooms, and talk to some of his students. We then went to Mrs. Hebert's K, 1, 2 class and talked with those students a bit. Finally we headed outside to visit Ms. Terry's 6th, 7th, & 8th graders out in the portable classroom. I enjoyed speaking with the upper graders and meeting the triplets (half of the entire 7th grade class!). After spending a few more minutes chatting with some of the parents and volunteers around the school, I was needing to head back down the hill. Before I did that, however, I decided to drive up to Pinecrest Lake. I had heard of how beautiful the lake was, but had never seen it. It is about 3 minutes up the road from Pinecrest School. If you live in the area, you've undoubtedly gone to the lake. It certainly lived up to it's reputation as a lovely Sierra lake.

Busy day.

It's a bit after 5:00 and I'm alone in the office. I'm sitting in my chair for what feels like the first time in hours. I wanted to jot down a few things here to give a snapshot of what my typical day looks like. As I write that I wonder if there is such a thing as a typical school administrator's day. Anyway, I usually arrive a little before 7:00, typically as the buses as just rolling out of the yard to head up the hill and start picking up the students. I take the quiet time before everyone arrives to organize and plan for the day. I write down my morning announcements, check and respond to emails, update my to-do list and do a few quiet things for about half an hour. This morning I had three students pay a visit at about 7:20, which cut my quiet planning time a little short. It was alright, as I want the kids to get to know me, just as I'm getting to know them. At about 7:45 I went up to the upper building to deliver some teacher's manuals to our new RSP teacher, Julie Burton, and to touch base with a few of the THMS teachers. When I headed back down to the office there was a new 7th grader who had just enrolled, so I walked him up to his classroom to met Mr. Gold, and along the way I introduced him to Mrs. Bickley, and Mrs. Anderson, as those are the teachers he'd be rotating through. When I came back to the office I had a parent who wanted to chat about a few things, so we talked for a short while after I did the morning announcements. I then went back to the upper building to see if there were some extra chairs lying about for Mr. Dunlap, and was able to secure a few that I think will work. While I was in his room, I had to find some 5th grade math materials to make copies of for Mike Brown, our 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade teacher up in Pinecrest who is missing some materials. I then decided to see what was happening in some of the upper grade classrooms. I sat in for a few minutes in Mrs. Anderson's class as she was explaining what she expected her student to have in their binders (organization is not an average 7th graders strong suit!). Mr. Gold was was going over the scientific process with the 6th graders and having them read about what a hypothesis is. Mrs. Olsen had 8th graders reading through "My Brother Sam is Dead" while Mrs. Bickley was working with the 5th graders on their "mad minute" math facts. I continued my short classroom observations by heading down to the lower building and I sat in as Mrs. Ransom was discussing fiction versus non-fiction in relation to "The Boxcar Children". As I finished visiting a couple more classes it was recess time. Since it's taken this many words to cover the first hour and a half of the day, I don't think I'll write more tonight about the rest of the day! I have a good feeling about where we are as a school, and the dedicated teachers that are working with the students.

On another note, we are still waiting for the state to release the API scores. They were supposed to be released to the schools last week, and made public today. We've received no word yet. Wonder what's going on at the State Department of Education.