AM Announcements - January 21

AM Announcements
January 21, 2010

1. Today is Day 90.

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:

Thursday: January 21
EOQ Testing continues
Job Site meeting - 9:00-10:00 - Reichert and Powell
Moreno-Castro Pre-K meeting in the art room - 12:30-1:30
LEA Representatives' meeting - Board Auditorium - 3:30-5:00 - Powell and Reichert off-campus
Staff Policy Committee meeting - Room 369 - 4:00-5:00 - Reichert off-campus

Friday: January 22
EOQ testing ends
Dollar Dress Down Day

4. Upcoming Calendar Items:
a. 01/25 - No School - RS Day for staff
b. 01/26 - Technology Staff-Development
c. 01/29 - Box Tops for Education due
d. 02/01 - Report Cards go home
e. 02/02 - SIT meets
f. 02/05 - Honor Roll Assembly

5. CERTL applications are available from Ms. Rhodes. The parents must fill out an application and it must include a written teacher recommendation letter from the teacher. The application deadline is February 18.

6. Books for the African Book Project can be dropped off in the front lobby. Please encourage your students to participate. You can join them in donating books as well.

7.  I want to tthank Mr. Cokley and all the other people who assisted with dismissal yesterday under very difficult circumstances. Ms. Powell told me that everything went very smoothly.

8. We are counting on all our staff members supporting the effort to donate 5000 gallons of water to the American Red Cross. It will make a tremendous difference in the lives of the Haitian people. In one day we raised 76 gallons of water. Please remind your students to bring only unopened bottles of water purchased from the store.

9. Ms. Powell and I will be off-campus this afternoon at Central Office. We will both be attending the LEA Representatives' training meeting from 3:30-5:00 and I also have Staff Policy Committee from 4:00-5:00.

10.  Student Council Members need to meet in the cafeteria at 2:00 p.m. today with their things for a brief meeting.

11. Ms. Moreno-Castro will be using the art room this afternoon from 12:30-1:30 for a Pre-K parent meeting.

12. Remind your students that tomorrow is a Dollar Dress Down Day.

13. As I walk around the building I am seeing increasing use of cell phones/Blackberries/i-Phones during the work day while individuals are supposed to be working with children. Out of concern over interruptions and the loss of instructional time, the office only sends "emergency" calls to classrooms. Messages are taken instead and are placed in your boxes. This procedure grew out of concerns expressed by the faculty about the loss of instructional time. The same concern does not appear to transfer to personal cell phone calls, direct connects and e-mails. One understands the occasional "emergency" use of a cell phone. The question remains as to how many "emergencies" an individual can have in the course of a day

14. I always wanted to be somebody, but I should have been more specific.
Jane Wagner, (and Lily Tomlin)

The world's as ugly as sin, and almost as delightful
Frederick Locker-Lampson

Where a calculator on the ENIAC is equipped with 18,000 vacuum tubes and weighs 30 tons, computers in the future may have only 1,000 vaccuum tubes and perhaps weigh 1.5 tons.
unknown, Popular Mechanics, March 1949

When you think of the long and gloomy history of man, you will find more hideous crimes have been committed in the name of obedience than have ever been committed in the name of rebellion.
C. P. Snow (1905 - 1980)