AM Announcements - October 26

AM Announcements
October 26, 2009

1. Today is Day 44.

2. It is the mission of Speas Elementary School to provide its students with the tools necessary to successfully meet the challenges they will face in a diverse world.

3. Calendar items for this week:

Monday: October 26
First Quarter EOQ testing continues

Tuesday: October 27
Staff-development - 2:40-4:00
First Quarter EOQ testing continues

Wednesday: October 28
First Quarter EOQ testing ends

Thursday: October 29
RC -Day - Staff members are responsible for attending any Central Office staff development planned for them. Please refer to schedule sent out on Friday.

Friday: October 30
RS day - Certified/Classified staff members may take annual leave if they choose.

4. Upcoming Calendar Items:
a. 11/10 - Make It, Take It Night - Reading
b. 11/11 - Veterans' Day - No School (Holiday for staff)
c. 11/13 - Honor Roll Assembly - 1:00 PM.
d. 11/16 - Interim Reports go home
e. 11/24 - Dollar Dress Down Day
f. 11/25-27 - Thanksgiving Holiday
g. 12/01 - Winter Concert
h. 12/04 - Dollar Dress Down Day
i. 12/04 - Speas Spelling Bee
j. 12/05 - Holiday Open House - The Reicherts

5. There appears to be confusion about October 29 and October 30 and .
a. On 10/29 - Certified and Classified staff members are expected to attend central office staff development if it is planned for them. If none is planned for you then you MAY take annual leave.
b. On 10/30 - Certified and Classified staff members MAY take annual leave, however they are not required to do so. It is their choice.

On these two days, everyone is welcome to work if they would like to. No one is required to take the time off.

6. This is a short instructional week and we have testing going on in grades 3-5. Hang in there, a break is coming.

7. Have you made your United Way pledge?

8. Please wear pink and denim all week in honor of the continued fight against breast cancer. Together we can beat this terrible killer.

9. Walk through data for October will be placed in your boxes today. Please review it in your PLC/Grade level meetings and bring it to tomorrow's staff-development.

10. Gus Hummings had a liver transplant at Duke University Hospital Saturday night into Sunday morning. Following surgery he began bleeding and was taken back to surgery last night to find the problem and stop it. He came out of surgery around 9:00 PM. The doctors said they were able to stop the bleeding and he was then moved to intensive care. That is the most up to date information we have at this time. We will keep all of you updated as soon as we know more. Please keep Gus and his family in your thoughts and prayers.

11. Mike's son Victor called Greg yesterday to update us on Mike. While Mike was in Jamaica for his father's funeral, his nephew in New York passed away as the result of a motorcycle accident. Mike is returning from Jamaica tomorrow and going to New York to be with his sister. Mike's brother, we don't know which one, has been hospitalized in Jamaica during this time as well. Please keep him in your thoughts and prayers.

12. A lifetime is more than sufficiently long for people to get what there is of it wrong.
Piet Hein (1905 - ), "Grooks"

Today's public figures can no longer write their own speeches or books, and there is some evidence that they can't read them either.
Gore Vidal (1925 - )

This is like deja vu all over again.
Yogi Berra (1925 - )

Before a war military science seems a real science, like astronomy; but after a war it seems more like astrology.
Rebecca West (1892 - 1983)