Readers

Wendie Roberts, our librarian, is currently holding a "Read a thon" for our Black Oak students. When students fill up their record sheet, they turn them into Wendie, and she then gives them a dog tag that says something about them being great readers. New this year is the "I read to the Principal" dog tag. In addition to filling up their record sheets students can read to me and I will sign off on their sheets and they then get the principal dog tag. Yesterday morning the office was full of kindergartners and first graders sitting in the seats in the front office, swinging their legs (as their feet don't touch the ground), holding their books, and waiting for me. I really enjoy these days, as oftentimes I only see kids in the office when they are misbehaving. Having kids read to me about Mrs. Wishy Washy and Biscuit the dog helps offset the times I have to growl at students!

"Smarter"

Last night we had our "Are you Smarter than a Fifth Grader?" fundraiser for the Give Every Child a Chance after school tutoring program that will begin in January. We had four adult contestants (including yours truly)who were assisted by several fifth grade students in Mr. Dunlap's class. I was contestant number 2, and watch as our first contestant fought valiantly, but had to finally succumb and admit that he was not smarter than a fifth grader. When my turn came up I was feeling pretty confident as I had been able to answer all the first contestant's questions. My swagger was quickly subdued when my first question, "Who founded the American Red Cross?" threw my confidence. It was a multiple choice question, and I quickly eliminated Mary Lincoln, which left Clara Barton, and Susan B. Anthony. I knew Susan B. Anthony was in the woman's suffrage movement, but wasn't sure if she was also involved in the Red Cross. I suspected Clara was the correct answer, but had to use one of my lifelines to make sure I didn't blow up on the first answer. The audience confirmed my hunch, and I was on my way. It wasn't a flawless run (I confused pistil and stamen in a flower), but I am happy to report that I can proudly look the fifth graders in the eye, and tell them that I am smarter than them!

We also had our Christmas tree auction for the trees that the students decorated. the trees looked great, and they all sold and are now happily sitting in living rooms throughout our community. It was a fun night, and I look forward to getting this tutoring program rolling to help our students.

"White Christmas"

Okay, this post is not about school, so forgive me in advance for wandering off topic. Yesterday we went to see Sierra Repertory Theater's "White Christmas." What a great show it was! I've always been impressed with SRT and the quality of the productions they put on, but this one was a cut above. The sing, dancing and acting were all superb, and the sets were great looking. I highly recommended taking your family to see this great family show!

Limousines!

Yesterday and today I began to "make good" on my promise to my top fun run pledge earners. Back in early October we held our fun run, and I promised all the students who raised $200 or more that I would get a limo and take them to Applebee's for lunch. Well, we have 34 students who made that goal! I called around and found Stagecoach Liousine in Murphy's seems to be the only local(ish) limo company. They were eager to work with us, and gave us some nice discounts (hence the plug on this blog!). Anyway, we've scheduled 4 days of limo lunches to accommodate all the students. On Monday of this week, I had the first graders from Mrs. Berry's class and the fourth graders from Mr. Calbert's class. Today were Mrs. Stapp's second graders, and Mrs. Ransom's third grade. Next week I'll move up to the middle school, and we'll have a couple of days to complete all the lunches earned there. The trips have been going great, with the students all really enjoying the trip, and they've been getting a lot of attention at Applebee's (who also gave us a nice discount, as well. Plug, plug!) As a matter of fact, I believe tomorrow's paper will have a nice picture of our students outside the limo at Applebee's!

Cross Country

Monday afternoon we had the cross country county championship at Columbia College. Being this was my first year coaching at Twain Harte, I didn't know what to expect the course to look like. I was disappointed to see how hilly it was! I was hoping the conditioning we had done had been enough. The race started with the 6th graders and after about 200 yards, they were out of sight. The course is comprised of 3 different loops. After the first loop, the runners returned to sight. After the first 10-15 runners, I knew something was wrong when one of my best runners, Jason, was no where in sight. I started back up the trail and quickly came across Jason limping back in. He had slipped and fallen on one of the hills, as he was in 2nd place. A trip to the first aide tent and some ice on his twisted ankle was all that was needed, but he was out of the race.

I was very proud of how our runners did in the meet and we had several runners who placed well. Sarah was the third place girl in the 6th grade. In 7th grade boys, Jered and Ben were 2nd and 3rd, respectively. A very good showing for TH schools!

Halloween

Friday was our big Halloween parade through downtown. It was a nice day, and the weather was perfect. It was fun to lead the parade with Dr. Keiter, and to turn the corner and see the crowd lined up on both sides of the street. This year, I actually knew some of the people in the crowd, whereas last year, I didn't know a soul! To be honest, I'm a bit of an Ebeneezer Scrooge when it comes to Halloween. I'm not sure what we are "celebrating" with this holiday. But I digress. I can put my personal feelings aside, as it is fun to see the little kids all dressed up as fairies and robots and such. My two favorite costumes had to be Leo (the micro-biologist) and Liam (the microbe). Very creative costumes!

Friday night we held our first dance. I always enjoy watching some of the kids really come out of their shells. We get to see them in an entirely different light at the dance. The kids enjoyed themselves, and thank you to Mrs. Bickley, and Mrs. Anderson for helping chaperone that event!

The final Halloween event was the carnival B.O.T.H. put on on Saturday night at Telele Lodge. It was a very nice event with lots of games, a cakewalk, cookie decorating and food. I went with my two kids, thinking we'd only stay a bit, and they had so much fun, we stayed until they closed it down. The eight graders really did a great job running the games, and it seemed like everyone had a great time. Thanks to Vicki Young (not White!) and the rest of the B.O.T.H. crew for putting on a fun event!

Baseball

Last night, while watching the World Series, my phone rang. It was Phil Coke, the pitcher for the Major League Detroit Tigers. He is from Tuolumne County, and as a matter of fact, had attended Black Oak Elementary in kindergarten and first grade. I had spoken with Phil's dad the day before and was trying to arrange a time for Phil to come to school and talk to the students. Today we had our virtue assembly and it was easy to add Phil to that assembly. I had a meeting in Sonora so I swung by Big 5 on the way home and bought a bag of baseballs. During our regular assembly, the kids with the most virtue cards receive a coupon for a free pizza at the Twain Harte Pizza Factory. Today, in addition to the pizza, the virtue card winners also received a signed baseball. Phil was great with the kids and spoke to them a bit about setting high goals and working hard to reach them. The best part was when John in Mr. Dunlap's class asked where Phil would put himself on a scale of 1-10. It was a bold question, but Phil showed off his fat, diamond encrusted World Series ring he won when he was with the Yankees last year. He said that with that ring, he could have said he was a ten. Instead, his goal was to get a ring on every finger, so he only rated himself a 6.

The kids were excited to talk to Phil, and he interacted very well with them. As the assembly ended, he stood at the door, and high fived or shook hands with every kid. I was very impressed with Phil, and was glad to have him at our assembly today.

I'm back!

After being accosted once again for not updating my blog, I've finally succumbed! I guess people are actually reading this thing, so I probably should give them something to read!

The last month of school has been busy. We had our fun run a few weeks ago, and that was a great success. The kids (and a few parents and teachers!) had a great time running laps. We've collected almost $10,000! I now need to schedule those limousines for the 34 students who raised $200 or more!

Of course, the big upcoming event is annual Halloween Parade on Friday. If you've never seen our parade, it is a short, but sweet affair. We'll line up all the costumed students by grade level, march through downtown Twain Harte, turn under the arch, and then back to campus. Last year's parade lasted about 6 minutes. I'm trying to work out a rain contingency plan. I have been told by several folks that this parade has traditionally been a rain (or snow) or shine event. Fortunately, when I looked at the weather report earlier this week, it looked like rain on Thursday, and Friday. Then the weather report showed Friday and Saturday for rain, then it showed Saturday. Looks like the storm is lessening it's likelihood of literally raining on our parade.

To continue our Halloween festivities, the middle school will host the first dance of the year on Friday night, and then B.O.T.H. will host the big Halloween Carnival at Telele Lodge on Saturday. Should prove to be a fun few days!

LAIR

(seems I never officially posted this entry last week as I had intended, as it was sitting in my drafts this morning. Oh well, better late than never!)

Last night I went to visit our 8th graders as they were out at Sierra Outdoor School over off Big Hill Road. They headed out on Wednesday morning and returned Friday afternoon. LAIR (still don't know what that acronym stands for)is a 3 day camp that builds problem solving, leadership and bonding of our future leaders. On Wednesday they tackle various challenges to work on developing their problem solving and team work. Thursday they headed up to Pinecrest lake and did kayaking, hiking and orienteering. Friday the big challenge are the high ropes (and we mean HIGH!) and the zip lines. These are great activities to challenge the students and help develop their own self confidence.

A big thank you to Mr. Primrose and Mrs. Deverel who were our parent suckers, err, I mean chaperones. Not only did they get the pleasure of trying to subdue a group of nervous,anxious, and excited 8th graders and try to get them to sleep, they also got to pay for it!

Back to school night and noon-league soccer

It was nice to see everyone last Thursday at Back to School Night. We had a great turn out, and it is always nice to show off the school, and the great teachers we have. Thank you to Vicky White and Daniel Richardson for speaking up for B.O.T.H. and F.F.E.E. Those groups provide a valuable service to our schools!

On Friday we started our noon-league soccer season. We run a sports league during lunch recess at the middle school. Students sign up, I pick captains, they pick teams, I create a schedule, and the kids play! This year we will have 4 sports: soccer, basketball, volleyball and softball. At the end of each season, we'll have a tournament and the winning team will win noon-league champ tee shirts!

Electives

Today was a big day at the middle school. We kicked off our electives classes with an organizational meeting with the teachers and students. We will have our elective period on Wednesdays that are not minimum days. Each trimester we'll give the students in 5th through 8th grade a choice of one class. We'll change classes each trimester, and give the students new choices. The teachers will have the ability to teach different classes than what they normally teach. For example, this trimester, Mrs. Bickley, our math teacher, will be teaching a cooking and nutrition class with Mr. Brown, our Title I teacher, Mr. Dunlap will be heading up a school newspaper, and Mr. Gold will round up some cross-age tutors to go work with Mrs. Berry's first graders. Mrs. Randall will be teaching drama, Mr. Glen Anderson (Mrs. Anderson's brother-in-law) will teach art, Janet Blaum will teach a crafts class and Mrs. Roberts, our Librarian, and I will be heading up the yearbook crew. We'll also have a study hall, and a "focus room" where students can be sent if they are having behavior issues. These classes should help enrich the student's experience at the middle school and will help to make Twain Harte the place to be!

Short week

Hope everyone had a nice Labor Day Weekend. It was busy for me, and was glad to be back to school!

Turns out it was a spacing error on the spreadsheet I sent in to pre-identify our CST tests that made all of our students Hawaiians! Ugh!

We are gearing up for Back to School Night on Thursday. Remember that Thursday is early dismissal!

API scores

Well, in typical form, the state had said the scores would be released at 10:00 yesterday morning, but when I logged in, there was a note saying they anticipating them being released by 2:00. We were in a staff meeting then and it wasn't until almost 5:00 that I had a chance to look at them. Good news! The middle school's API scores rose from 803 to 805, Black Oak's scores rose from 822 to 842, and Pinecrest's went from 878 to 919! This is a testament to the hard work all the teachers have put in. Black Oak's gain of 20 points and Pinecrest's gain of 41 points are two of the highest point gains in the county for regular (non-charter) schools, and Pinecrest's score of 919 (out of a possible 1000) is one of the highest in the state! Very nice work, teachers and students!

An interesting side note to the test scores. In the fall I have to upload our student data to Educational Testing Service (ETS), the company that produces the California Standards Test (CST). ETS then fills out our CST tests with our student data (name, grade, birth date, etc.) Apparently, I transposed a digit in the ethnicity field on the database, as we now have very nearly 100% of our students are Native Hawaian, or Pacific Islanders! I think we'll have Hula dancing as a P.E. class and start surfing on Pinecrest Lake!

Wednesday

Today is a big day. The state is supposed to be releasing our APR (Accountability Progress Report) scores at 10:00. The APR includes the API (Academic Performance Index) and AYP (Adequate Yearly Progress).

The API is the state's measure of how well our school's have done on the CST (California Standards Test). This consists of a number from 200 to 1000, with the state goal of every school being at least 800. Last years scores were 822 for Black Oak, 809 for Twain Harte Middle School, and 878 for Pinecrest (The best in the county!). I'm confident these numbers will all rise as our CST scores showed improvements across the board.

AYP is the federal government's accountability goal (think No Child Left Behind). That program states that all students must be proficient on the CST test by 2014. This is a seriously challenging goal, and while we made good progress, I suspect we will have not met this goal (neither will most schools in California). It will be interesting to see how the Obama administration changes the game when No Child Left Behind comes up for reauthorization later this year.

I'll update this blog later today once the scores have been made available.

Day 3

Okay, I think I will stop counting the days in the titles of my posts. Sounds too much like I'm keeping a journal on a desert isle. Also, it's somewhat depressing to think there's 177 more until summer! Actually if we can keep rolling like we have this first week, we'll be sad when summer comes!

Today I went up to visit Pinecrest School and check in with their opening. It was great to see Ms. Terry's 6th, 7th and 8th graders in doing "Reading Buddies" with Mrs. Knowles (formerly Ms. Hebert!) Kindergarten, 1st and 2nd graders. The older kids get a lot out of the experience of reading to their younger buddies, and it really helps build bonds across the school. It was great to see the interactions among the different ages, with some of the kindergartners leaning against the older students as they read to them.

Mr. Brown had his fourth graders working away on a language arts lesson. Since all of these students were third graders with Mr. Brown last year, they didn't have to spend too much time getting back into the swing of things. They've just jumped right in and are already moving through the new 4th grade material.

I then came back down the hill and held our behavior expectation assembly with our kindergarten classes. I forgot how quickly they hit their saturation point. Mental note... Next year shorten my presentation to Kindergartners to about one and a half minutes. Maybe I need to juggle flaming bowling balls to hold their attention. In reality, they are doing very well given it is only their 3rd day here.

In the afternoon we held our upper grade assembly. I covered the general behavior expectations with the students. Dress code and cell phones took up the majority of that discussion. After my part, the new student council held some spirit games to kick the year off. The games were fun, but I believe the student council learned a few things about crowd control... at least I hope they learned!

Have a great weekend everyone! Suddenly, I remember why Fridays are so highly revered!

Day 2

Today was another smooth day, so yesterday wasn't an illusion! Our new students are fitting right in. I was glad to see Isaac, a brand new 6th grader, out playing football at recess time. I made a mental note when I saw him make a great catch and run it in for a touch down to make sure we get our hooks into him (and his 8th grade brother!)for our sports teams.

This afternoon I held the "behavior expectations" assembly with Mrs. Berrys and Mrs. Stapp's 1st and 2nd grade classrooms, and the with Mrs. Ransom and Mr. Calbert's 3rd and 4th grade classrooms. We covered the three school rules, Safety, Respect, and Responsibility. Tomorrow I hit the other grade levels.

There's a great spread on the front of today's Union Democrat of our first day of school! Very nice picture of Ms. Sperry walking the kids to lunch and I wonder what Kenidee is whispering to her sister...

1 down, 179 to go!

One of the yard duty aides said, "1 down 179 to go" at the end of the day today. If they all went like today, 179 would be too few! It was a great day. Everything went smoothly, the buses ran on schedule, and the cafeteria had great baked chicken! Tomorrow I will begin my rules assemblies where I gather up the students and cover the expectations for their behavior. I'm hitting 2nd, 3rd and 4th grades tomorrow and K, 1, 5-8 on Friday. After that, no one can say "I didn't know"...

Go!

What a smooth start! Things have really started well. It was great to see all the returning students and to welcome our new students. With the exception of 4 students, everyone showed up, and had an assigned place! All of our kids found their classrooms successfully (I did have to assist a lost Kindergartner this morning), and our teachers did a wonderful job with their preparations. So far the kindergartners are doing great! No tears (from the kids, at least. The same cannot be said for the flotilla of parents this morning!)

Now to get everyone through the lunch line for the first time!

Get Set!

Today we had our teacher meetings. Today is basically like my first day of school as I have to prepare my "lessons" and make sure I have all the bases are covered for setting the course for the year. We spent time review the goals for the year, reviewing the CST testing data (this is a subject I'll spend more time on in later posts!), looking at schedules and planning for the year. It's a jam packed few hours in the morning where I have to throw a lot of information at the teachers in a short amount of time. I feel so much more prepared this year! Last year at this time, I was still learning the teachers' names! Now I really feel as if we will be able to really hit the ground running. The teachers, of course, always do a bang up job at the start of the year, and this year I feel like I'll be able to keep up with them more. Heck, maybe I can actually get ahead and do some leading! ;)

On your mark! ( I know, I did this last year...)

Well, I'm now going through my agenda for tomorrow's staff meeting making sure I am prepared for the staff meeting tomorrow morning. I spent some time getting the library study area cleaned and ready to go. I'll have to come in early in the morning tomorrow for final preparations. Tonight I am going to try to look for a great motivational piece to start the year off. (Last year I used Dalton Sherman, a 10 year old who gave the keynote speech to a huge school district in Florida, look him up on Youtube! Very impressive kid there!)

We've got class list mostly finished (had a new kindergartner, first grader, second grader and two new fifth graders show up today!) Our student counts are 143 for Black Oak, 132 for Twain Harte Middle School and 52 for Pinecrest. Those numbers one year ago were 149 for Black Oak, 137 for THMS, and 49 for Pinecrest, so we are down a few students from last year. One encouraging statistic in our student numbers is last year we had 34 8th graders graduate from the district and this year we have 44 incoming Kindergartners!

Dusting ourselves off!

Well, we are just about ready for the year to begin, and it is time for me to update this blog! I hope everyone had a nice and relaxing summer. The teachers have been buzzing about for the last week or so getting ready for the new year. It's exciting to see all the energy and new ideas! We'll be posting class lists on Monday, August 23rd, and school starts on Wednesday the 25th at 8:20. Wednesday is a minimum day so dismissal will be 1:35 for Black Oak, and 1:40 for the middle school.

Looking forward to a great year!

Summertime!

Well, I know this blog has gotten plenty dusty, and I will pretty much put it to bed until next school year begins in August. It has been a great year, and I'm looking forward to next year! See you in Fall!

Challenge Day Recap...

We'll it took a little bit, but I want to write down my feelings about our Challenge Day on Monday. The day started off with lots of high energy games and goofing off. Our leaders, Devon and Khayre did a great job of getting the kids (and the adults!) to be involved and lower any filters they had. There was lots of music and crazy running around looking for chairs and lots of jostling and close-quarter activities. They would intersperse small talks about stereotypes, and how things get ingrained in what we do. Here's an interesting activity... Fold your hands. Which thumb is on top? Now fold them so the other one is on top. Feels weird, huh? Point being, we have a set way that we do things.

After the morning games and crazy jumping and dancing, things started settling down, and we started getting serious, talking about things such as society's messages to young men and women. We got into small groups and started opening up to each other. It was great to see the adults participating as well. The day progressed through more activities that continued to open up the differences, but more importantly the similarities, between the students. By the end of the day, through lots of hugs and tears, the students were told that they had the power to be the change to help make the school the place we'd all like to be part of. It was a very powerful day, and I'm looking forward to building on the momentum of the day to help improve the culture of the school.

Challenge Day

Tomorrow we will be an interesting day. We are hosting a "Challenge Day" for our 7th and 8th graders. Challenge Day is a national organization that addresses bullying in the schools. I'm excited about tomorrow, as there has recently been a spate of news, both locally and across the country, about bullying in schools. Challenge Day addresses bullying head-on and then challenges them to "be the change." I'll post more after tomorrow about how it went, but if you'd like more info on Challenge Day, their website is www.challengeday.org.

Here comes the tests!

Over Easter break I got a note saying that our CST tests had arrived. I guess they are unavoidable, unfortunately. It's always an anxious time of year (especially for a new principal!) as it seems everything we do gets boiled down to this one test. We've made some pretty big changes, especially in the middle school, as a result of our last few years' test, and I am really looking forward to see if they pay off. Specifically, we've worked to eliminate the combination classes during core instruction, and increased the instructional block for mathematics. Since middle school math was our lowest area, hopefully these changes will help bring those scores up. Next year, I want to continue emphasizing math and work on implementing some whole-school programs to help bolster our students in the lower grades so they are better prepared for the middle school program. Also, we will look closely at implementing benchmark assessments to be able to know how students are progressing throughout the school year to better alter our course of instruction during the year.

I know that not all the good things our teachers and staff are doing for the kids will show up on these tests, and that is one of the biggest complaints about them. I try to keep everything in perspective, as I know the tests are important as a measure of student progress, but should not be the thing that dictates our every action. Trying to find that balance and keeping the big picture in focus is a difficult job!

Parent survey

It's the time of year when we are starting to look towards next year and begin making plans. to that end, I'd like to get feedback from our parents and families. I've created a parent survey to get your input to help guide us as we plan for next year. This survey is anonymous, as I want people to feel comfortable with leaving both positive responses and constructive criticism. The survey is available online through a link on the district's home page (www.thsd.k12.ca.us) or directly at www.surveymonkey.com/s/QWMCFB3. We do have paper copies available in the office, but I figure if you are into blog reading, you are probably into online surveys!

Tweeting...

I have recently set up a Twitter account for our schools. To be honest, I've never really seen the point of Twitter for social networking because I really don't need to know what anyone is doing at every single moment of the day. However, you can't argue the practicality of pushing out information to folks at the push of a button. My thought behind the Twitter account is to be able to send out notices about snow days (probably done with those for this year!), reminders of minimum days, or emergency information. I don't really plan on using it that often, as I don't think I'll be tweeting about what I'm having for lunch. Also, one of the practical issues I'll have to overcome is the filter at school. When I checked today, Twitter is blocked by our filter. I'll have to work away around that to make it work (probably just ask a student to help me!). If you are interested in following us on Twitter, we are at www.twitter.com/thschools.

Awards and hams!

This past week has been one of acknowledgment and accomplishment. Wednesday night, we had many of our students participate in the Tuolumne County "History Day" competition. Our students had many great projects, and special congratulations to Sarah Peterson who took third for her paper on mining, and Johnathan Olsen and Tyler Inwood with their project on the impact of the John Deere tractor took first place! John and Tyler now go to Pasadena to represent Tuolumne County at the State level competition! Super work guys, and nice picture on the front page of the newspaper!

Also in the newspaper were the results of the Pinecrest Invitational ski/board tournament I wrote about earlier. Included in the article was a picture of Danny Kelsay, one of our 2nd grade skiers! Good day for Twain Harte in the local media!

Last night I attended the "Employees Who Make a Difference" Awards presentation. This is an annual award given out by the Tuolumne County Association of California School Administrators. We were proud to nominate Sharon Gianelli from Pinecrest School, Michelle Dake from the district office, and Kathleen Olsen from Twain Harte Middle School. These folks (along with everyone else at our schools!) really do make a difference in our student's lives.

When I finished up with the awards banquet, I then returned back to school to catch what I could of the Family Talent Show, and spaghetti feed that B.O.T.H. was sponsoring. There was a great turn out, but by the time I got there, it was nearly over. I did get to see the grand finale act, however. Dylan, a 7th grader, balanced a 4-layer cake on his head for one minute! It was death defying! Everyone seemed to have a good time, and I'm looking forward to seeing the video, as I've heard rumors of an act titled "Ode to an Armpit." I'm sure the actors' parents must be so proud...

Ski season & Pinecrest Invitational

Last Friday was the conclusion of our ski program for this year. I want to say a huge thank you to Betsy Griffith and all of the parent volunteers who make this program possible. With the amount of work involved, I'm sure this program would not be nearly as successful without their help. Personally, I've been pleased to have the ability to brush up on my skiing skills, and see the kids on the slopes, some testing the waters for the first time, some who've grown up on the slopes. I know my mom has also really enjoyed getting back into skiing (Hi Mom!).

Today we had the 39th annual Pinecrest Invitational. It was great to see the teachers from Pinecrest and parents from both Twain Harte and Pinecrest. There was some spirited friendly teasing between the parents from the two camps. The kids all did well, and congratulations to Pinecrest Elementary for taking the overall title once again.

An interesting side note, after the competition concluded, I hit the slopes with some of the kids, and we skied until the lifts closed at 4:00. I then drove several of the boys home, and I was heading by school, I saw our 8th grade volleyball game was still going on, so I popped in for a few minutes. It was great to see 4 of the girls who competed at the ski tournament playing on our volleyball team! Oh to have that much energy still!

What's new

It's been a long time since I've updated this blog. Just fallen out of the habit, and am now going to try to fall back into the habit!

Things have been humming along at school. Last Friday was the end of the second trimester. The teachers have been doing great work with the kids and getting them ready for the CST tests in May.

We have completed our noon-league basketball season and have just started volleyball. The school teams played their first games today, and I know the 6th grade girls crushed Curtis Creek. Our 7th and 8th grade teams were away, so I don't know the results of those games yet.

The biggest challenge over the last couple of weeks has been trying to keep the kids off the ice on the blacktop. Even when it is nice and sunny, the blacktop right at the base of our blue wall stays icy pretty much all day. I believe this is categorized as an "attractive nuisance" as the kids seem attracted to the fun sliding like moths to a flame. Oh well, that's why I get paid the big bucks?

Weekly Recap

Okay, time for an update...

This was a busy week. On Tuesday we held our Instructional Study Team (IST) meetings. This is a time for us to "circle the wagons" on students with which we are having concerns. We held 8 meetings and had our psychologist, parents and teachers as well as myself come together. During these meetings, we look at what issues the student is having and try to develop a plan to help that child succeed.

Wednesday I went to visit Pinecrest and conducted a couple teacher observations. Wednesday evening was the county spelling bee. We were represented by Mia and Lizzy from Twain Harte and Mariah from Pinecrest in the 7th grade and Leah, Randy and Camilla in the 8th. All of our students performed well, and extra recognition goes to Camilla who placed 5th and Mariah who placed 3rd. Nice work Spellers!

Thursday morning the Tuolumne County Association of California School Administrators hosted their annual "Every Student Succeeds" awards breakfast at the Elks Lodge. Randy Hart was our nominee. Randy has overcome a difficult situation at home and is truly a leader at our school. He is one of the nicest young men you will ever meet.

After the breakfast, I dashed up to Dodge to help chaperone our ski trip. The conditions were great and the kids all did a great job. I then had to come down early from the ski trip for our School Site Council meeting.

Friday night we had our third dance of the year. A lot of the kids were pretty wiped out from a combination of the ski trip the day before, and coming down from the sugar rush from all the Valentine's cookies, candies and cupcakes!

It's hard to believe this was only a four day week! I'm glad I have three days to recover!

Rescheduled Ski trip

The trip we had scheduled for the 22nd of January will be rescheduled to Thursday, February 11th. All the 5th-8th grade students who were eligible to attend the trip on the 22nd and signed up for that one will be allowed to go on the trip on the 11th. The fourth grade students will go on the trip on February 26th, as we had originally changed them before the snow day on the 22nd. With any luck, we'll get the rest of our trips in without much difficulty due to weather!

We finally succumbed!

Unfortunately, even the hardy stock of the Twain Harte-Long Barn Union School District had to throw in the towel today. As of 5:30 this morning we were still going to try to make school happen today, but when the power went out at 5:35, we had to rethink our plans, and call a snow day.

This is our third snow day of the year. In case you were wondering, our school calendar only has one additional day built in for a snow day. That day is Friday, June 11th, one day after our previously scheduled end of the year. Now with these snow days we will go to the 11th. We only have to make up one day, as the State requires us to build in a snow day in our calendar based on the average number of snow days called in the past 5 years. Our previous average has been more than 1, but less than 2 days. With the 3 snow days this year, it may up our average to over 2 days, and therefore trigger an additional snow day to be added to our next year's calendar. We do not have to make up any more than the one day for this year, however.

As for today's ski trip... Well, I think it goes without saying that we didn't go. We'll have to try to reschedule that one for later in the year. At this rate, we might still be able to ski on June 11th!

Snow, rain, and wind!

Well I'm glad one of my New Year's resolutions was not to update my blog more often, as I have obviously fallen behind on that!

This has certainly been a wild week weather wise. The storms this week have been keeping us all indoors and the "natives" are getting restless! So far this week we have been able to sneak through with only having rainy day schedules. This morning we did have to call a snow transportation day as it would have been difficult for the buses to navigate some of the narrower steeper roads off the main highway. As I write this (watching American Idol at almost 9:00 on Wednesday night!), and the rain continues to come down (at my house at about 3000'), I do not know what tomorrow holds. At the minimum we will be on a snow transportation day, and possibly a late start. Keep your radios tuned to our local stations tomorrow morning!

This Friday we also have our second ski trip planned, and this trip may become a victim to the weather. We are trying to hold off until the last moment to make this call. We'll look at our forecasts tomorrow morning and let everyone know.

New Year!

Happy new year to everyone! I'm now getting back into the rhythm of school. I have to get back in the habit of being regulated by bells (or a clock for that matter!). Additionally, I need to get back to the habit of updating my blog. This was especially apparent after a phone call to my mom this afternoon, where she asked me to update my blog, so here you go, Mom!

This last week we've added a couple of new students, and I always try to walk them around and get them introduced to their teachers and classrooms. Both our new boys (6th and 8th graders) already have quite a few friends and so they pretty quickly wanted to ditch me and hang out with their friends (can you blame them?).

I've set myself a few New Year's resolutions for this year. My personal resolutions are the typical; eat better, get more exercise, lose weight (and make "Pro" on Wii Sports Tennis!). My professional resolutions include trying to stay up on my paperwork more. I find myself moving piles of papers too many times, and need to develop a better system.